ZPD - Zone of Proximal Development

This is the middle ground between where an emergent bilingual student is able to do something with help, or finally able to do something without help. Often times, an emergent bilingual student is right on a cusp and not quite ready to be riding that bicycle without training wheels, yet. We need to make sure to turn into the realistic ability of the student in order to better enhance their academic career. This “zone” coincides with the i+1 theory, which stands for “information + 1.”

Now, you math people are going to love this linguistic equation! As Stephen Krashen stated, “If we learn by acquisition, then the question is how do we acquire?” We acquire by comprehensible input which is nothing more than a message given to us in a way that we will understand. So, let’s say that a student is on level “I” of learning English; we must give the student their level’s English ability, which is “i”, PLUS 1 to push the student a little bit further, therefore, yielding to the idea of language acquisition by means of comprehensible input.

So, whatever you teach, just make sure it is taught so they can understand, realizing their zone of proximal development (ZPD) may begin or end. And, do not worry, you do not have to look too far because you will be able to see it in their eyes. It is better for them to get an i+1 of something as opposed to an i+10 of nothing.

Once they do say, Ah ha!, and understand, then you will pause for a minute and get that really good feeling that makes you know EXACTLY why you have a passion for teaching, and why you became a teacher.

A teach in like Campbell’s soup: So many reasons teaching is mmm mmm good!