Aktiviti Pengaturan Menggunakan Zone of Proximal Development dalam Menstruktur Ayat Bahasa Sepanyol

Abstract

Most studies which explored the concept of Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978) focus on the collaboration with experts. These studies are often designed and measured by pre and post test designs. In fact, these studies revealed the linguistic improvements of learners by comparing the global scores of the pre and post results. On the other hand, the mental process on how mediation occurs and what is the nature of the regulation activities during the learners’ engagement in collaborative activities or interaction with experts are rarely examined. Moreover, in most scenarios of foreign language studies (particularly Spanish) in Malaysia, learners carry out written tasks at home, and the expert or teacher assistance is often limited. Hence, this study endeavours to explore the mental processes of how the learners solve problems during the writing of Spanish sentences especially without the presence of an expert; secondly, the study examines the nature of the regulation activities that occur during the structuring process. Using Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) on 72 Spanish basic level (novice) learners, the study was able to display the mental processes of mediation and regulation activities; it also provided a picture of the mental activities when learners are structuring the lexical and syntactic aspects of sentences in Spanish. The study also found that in the absence of an expert or a teacher, the learners who are at the novice level of their Spanish language knowledge, are able to reach the level of self-regulation through mediation with Google Translate, friends and books.