CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
25 because learners see the whole subject as a set of the same ideas rather than ideas which are isolated. He further warns that integration should be for specific purposes in helping the learners not just to make links that have no substance.
This literature review has helped the researcher in contextualizing the study and in discussing the concepts framing the study, given below. These concepts are relevant to the study because it concentrates on what strategies teachers use when teaching reading in mother tongue and also on teachers’ knowledge when teaching reading in isiZulu mother tongue.
26 highlights realisation, where meaning is realised as wording and wording is realised as sounding or lettering. In his theory, Halliday (1996) critiques the structuralist model stating that some literacy approaches insist on learners knowing sounds before they can learn to read.
Social constructivism emphasises that learning takes place in a socio-cultural environment.
What is learned, and how the sense of knowledge is made, depends on where and when the learning occurs. Learning takes place through dialogue and is mediated through language and other systems of signs, such as gestures or diagrams (Vygotsky, 1978). Vygotsky (1978) claimed that for a learner to learn a skill or a concept, it had to be within the learner’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is a premise used to determine what the learners are capable of learning. If the skill or a concept is something that a learner could do or understand with the help of a knowledgeable peer, then that concept or skill is something they could perform on their own after learning it with support. Fundamental to social constructivism is the concept of scaffolding.
The aspects of Vygotsky’s theory relevant to this study are that the potential for cognitive development is limited to a ZPD. The ZPD co-exists with scaffolding. However, it is important to note that Vygotsky never used this term in his writing but referred to ‘mediation’.
This zone is the area of discovery in which the learners requires help and social interaction to develop fully as they are cognitively prepared for such development. A teacher is able to provide learners with scaffolding to support them with the understanding of knowledge domains and the development of complex skills. Emergent literacy and scaffolding supports the intellectual knowledge and skills of learners and facilitates intentional learning.
Vygotsky (1978) believed that everything learners learn is based on two levels:
i) Social level
Learners learn through interacting with others which might be other learners or the instructor (interpsychological). Learners learn at home when young, and the adults interact with the child by smiling, talking with the child, playing with the child when young and even when teaching the child something at home. Learners also learn incidentally at home by regular exposure to a word, e.g. “jam”. The child can be able to tell that this word is “jam”. Learners also play with other children at home, teaching each other different words whilst playing
27 school. The learners also interact with the world through everyday communication, i.e. when at home, when playing, when at church, at school and within their community.
ii) Individual level
Learners also learn when they are alone (intrapsychological). They can learn when alone at home, school and away from the outside world. Vygotsky (1978, p.57) stated that “intra- psychological applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts”. Intrapsychology can also be through reflection of knowledge like shortening learning material through self study.
Scaffolding and emergent literacy are fundamental concepts that have been utilised to inform the teaching of literacy in isiZulu mother tongue in foundation phase, which is the focus of this study.
2.3.2 Scaffolding
Scaffolding is theorized as an instructional tactic that involves supporting learners by limiting the difficulty of the context, and by gradually removing those limits as learners gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence to cope with the full complexity of the context (Young, 1993). Scaffolding is the concept that encourages teacher–student interaction in understanding a text. It is a dual medium approach. Once the student, with the benefit of scaffolding, masters the task, the scaffolding can then be removed and the learner will be able to complete the task again on his/ her own. In considering emergent literacy, foundation phase teachers should utilise the scaffolding approach in their teaching of isiZulu mother tongue. Scaffolding is the process through which a teacher can structure and support learning in a meaningful way.
Axford, Harders and Wise (2009) stated that many people suggest that scaffolding is synonymous with support but they argue that, in the context of teaching and learning, scaffolding is much more than just support. It facilitates the performance of the required task, for example, teachers need to offer support by giving learners tasks that are familiar to their experiences so that learners can learn from their pre-existing knowledge. Axford et al. (2009) recommended the scaffolding literacy approach where the aim is to provide a structure in which the teacher and learners together can access the different cueing systems by using text that will be supportive because it is at the learners’ level. They further asserted that
28 scaffolding literacy is not a set of separate activities that can be used in isolation from other activities, but allows teachers to move backward in the sequence if they see that their learners are not yet ready to undertake the next activities. Killen (2015) also confirms that scaffolding is when teachers provide learners with enough assistance to complete a given task but gradually decrease the assistance when learners are able to work independently.
2.3.3 Emergent Literacy
Clay (1982) was the first one to use the term emergent literacy. She claimed that emergent literacy starts before learners attend school. She argued that for the literacy development of a child to be effective, the emergent literacy approach should be used. Emergent literacy is regarded as the approach to teaching learners early literacy that recognises that literacy develops from home to school. Emergent literacy is a term used to explain a child’s knowledge of reading and writing skills before they learn how to read and write words. Bloch (2005) asserted that emergent literacy sees young children constructing their literacy in a meaningful way as part of social, personal and cultural learning processes. Bloch (2005) further argued that teachers and parents need to develop learners’ emergent literacy skills and that emergent literacy is a social model because it takes home and school literacy practices as family literacy. Clay (1982) maintained that emergent literacy is mostly related to the development of imagination in a child from when they are born until they begin schooling.
Therefore, foundation phase teachers need to take into consideration the emergent literacy approach in their strategies of teaching isiZulu mother tongue.