Play The Teachers' Role As Mediators To Help Students Go Through Their ZPD

Education is concerned not just with theories of instruction, but with learning to learn, developing skill and strategies to continue to learn, with making learning experiences meaningful and relevant to the individual, with developing and growing as a whole person.Based on this, education reform requires that teachers first change their beliefs about education and teaching theories. The premise of the reform is the changing of teaching beliefs. The key of the reform is the teacher. And the teacher must change his thoughts and actions from three aspects: 1) changing his belief; 2) changing his role; 3) changing his function; A teacher must become an educator, an organizer, a designer, and an instructor. In a word a teacher should be a mediator. From the practice of students, a teacher must play as a mediator to serve the students, to teach them how to learn.One aspect of the students' practice is their zone of proximal development (ZPD). ZPD-- Vygotsky's most widely known concept is the term used to refer to the layer of skill or knowledge, with is just beyond that with which the learner is currently capable of coping. Knowing the ZPD of the students, teachers will more clearly know how to help learners to learn.The role of mediation refers to the use of "tool" . Tools in this sense refer to anything that is used in order to help solve a problem or achieve a goal. The use of mediational language to help learners go into and through their zone of proximal development is of particular significance.This essay mainly discusses how teachers play mediation role to help learners go into and through their current ZPD.