Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist whose research mainly focused on early childhood development and the way in which a child's language acquisition shapes their cognitive capabilities.

Vygotsky believes that social interactions are the primary source of our cognitive (and thus language) development. He believed that children gain their knowledge through what has been passed down to them from those who are 'intellectually more advanced than them'. They also acquire new vocabulary and understanding through interacting with their peers. Vygotsky also believed in scaffolding, which in short. is when the teacher provides guidance to the learners until they feel that the child can complete tasks by themselves. One of the most important concepts is the Zone of Proximal development.

Best explained Zone of Proximal Development is the 'gap' between what the child already knows and what they do not, that 'gap' between the two is where their learning takes place.

If we were to look at the first image metaphorically, it can help us understand the concept a bit better. The one person is standing in a place that they understand and where they know and are comfortable (prior knowledge). The mountain on the other side is what the person is unfamiliar with and is unknown (knowledge that they are being introduced to but still do not understand). The two people's hands are what we can call the Zone of Proximal Development. We can say this because the person following does not know where they are going and that mountain they are faced with in front of them is unknown,however, they are being helped and guided to the unknown by someone who in fact has been their and is using their prior knowledge to help them and guide them. This is where their learning is taking place. This person is standing in a place that is familiar and using their own ability and knowledge within this picture however it is not enough to reach the final destination and thus they need the help and guidance of the person in front of them to help expand their knowledge.

We can apply this to the nature of teaching language to children within the Foundation phase. Children are not clueless. In fact, they are a pool of knowledge. However, their ideas and understanding of certain meanings of words and their contexts' are not always accurate. It is our duty to not undermine their words or how they use these words (because some cultures use words in different ways and as we have seen from the above statement, children absorbed the knowledge that has been passed down to them from those that are more intellectually advanced than them) but it is our duty to guide them into using their language correctly. We can do this by exposing them to new vocabulary, class discussions and allowing them to learn from each other.