The worlds’ game collective language manipulation as a space to develop logical abilities in a primary school classroom

This paper presents a Vygotskian research device that focuses on collaborative activities based on the manipulation of linguistic objects in a primary school classroom, with 8–9-year-old children. Through social exchanges among the different points of view, the children were engaged in a dynamic pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEuropean journal of psychology of education Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 783 - 799
Main Authors Coppola, Cristina, Mollo, Monica, Pacelli, Tiziana
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Science + Business Media 01.10.2019
Springer Netherlands
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Children
Children & youth
Classroom Communication
Classrooms
Cognitive development
Collaboration
Content Analysis
Cooperative Learning
Education
Educational Games
Educational Psychology
Elementary education
Elementary School Students
Elementary Schools
Knowledge
Language
Language Processing
Language Skills
Learning Activities
Linguistics
Logic
Mastery Learning
Mathematics
Mathematics Activities
Mathematics education
Mathematics Skills
Pedagogic Psychology
Qualitative research
Semantics
Social interaction
Syntax
Teaching
Thinking Skills
Syntax and semantics
Social interactions
Language
Manipulation
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Summary:This paper presents a Vygotskian research device that focuses on collaborative activities based on the manipulation of linguistic objects in a primary school classroom, with 8–9-year-old children. Through social exchanges among the different points of view, the children were engaged in a dynamic process of building and negotiating mathematical meanings. How the children may become aware of the possibility that the same language can have different interpretations as well as some aspects of the distinction between syntax and semantic is analyzed. The analyzed activity is the “worlds’ game,” the final step of a didactic path based on the construction and manipulation of a procedural language. The content analysis of the elicitation interviews allows to reconstruct children’s reasoning, individually developed during and after the activities. From a qualitative analysis, it emerges how almost all the children reached a good level of awareness and mastery about the possibility that the same language can have different interpretations and, therefore, about some aspects of the difference between syntax and semantics.
ISSN:0256-2928
1878-5174
DOI:10.1007/s10212-018-0401-1