Introduction

My name is Bella Kedidimetse Bokgwathile. I am 45 years old and a mother of two girls ( older one is 26 years old and the little one is 9 years old). I live in Ditshilo village which is situated at Mafikeng. I am a teacher at Mokaila Primary School. I studied Grade R Diploma in teaching. I had experience of 13 years before I could become a teacher as I studied ABET at UNISA and used to teach adult night school.

Seeing myself working with children and helping them is a blessing. My is what I love the most as each and every single day I learn how children react to different things. I look forward to enjoying this module and I hope to learn more about music.

STUDY UNIT 1

1. Explain your understanding of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development

Vygotsky's development theory draws attention to the social-cultural factors that influence cognitive development which special importance of social interaction and language development. Vygotsky teach us about learning needs of a child and their developmental stage. Vygotsky believes that the social environment influences cognition through tools and that adults teach those tools to children.

Zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual development level(stage) as determined by independent problem solving and level of potential development and determined through problem solving and the level of potential adult and peer support. Zone of proximal draws attention to the potential that a learner has to master new skills or successfully solve a problem through a teacher and peer scaffolding. By means of scaffolding, this refers to children's ability to develop their thinking abilities during challenging situation through carefully planned and guided support from both teachers and peers. By doing so, teachers provide support and utilize peer scaffolding to assist learners in successfully solving problems to reach their potential and acquire new skills or knowledge.

2. Summarise the most important aspects of the leaning theories of Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky for your teaching practice as foundation phase teacher.

Erikson's development theory for stages of psychological development draws attention to the influence of social interaction and relationships on learning. We cannot disregard the importance of fostering relationships with our learners, and having opportunities to foster meaningful relationships with their peers. Meaningful relationships are crucial if our learners are to feel safe, valued, supported and cared for in our classrooms. It is important to have knowledge of learning and developmental theories that give special importance and support this. We have important role to play in our learner's lives with regards to provide them with enough motivation and encouragement with the aim of fostering feelings of competence, promoting their self-esteem and confidence.

Piaget argues that one of the most important aspects to consider when referring children's cognitive development is to acknowledge that children think differently than adults. During pre-operational stage, children are able to represent objects and knowledge through play, drawing, imitation, images and speech. During concrete operational stage, children must experience music in authentic contexts through active engagement to make sense of their experience in a concrete, logical way through movement, imagery and conversation. As educators, we should foster foundation phase learner's abilities to recognise and respect others' opinion.

Vygotsky emphasized the role of adults and able peers in a child's learning. As a teacher you facilitate learning during the early stages of acquiring new knowledge and skills, but in such a way as to enable learners to gain the necessary understanding to solve problems on their own later on.