Scaffolding

The term ‘scaffolding’ comes from the works of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). The metaphor describes the type of assistance offered by a teacher or peer to support learning. Scaffolding is an interactive method of teaching and learning where the teacher provides a temporary framework for the learner who is working just beyond independent capabilities (NTDE 1995). It can and should occur in all aspects of learning in order to assist students to achieve their potential, comprising guiding, modelling and cueing of students. This is achieved by the teacher sharing the cognitive workload to link the known to the unknown using techniques of: Cueing and questioning Demonstrating and modelling Role and problem identification Planning Monitoring Evaluation

Language teaching in Australia has been heavily influence by the work of Prof. Michael Halliday who developed systemic functional grammar. His work has also been taken up and further developed by linguists such as Jim Martin and others. Functional grammar relates grammar to meaning, and to the contexts in which language occurs. It takes into account factors which relate to the context in which the language is being used and the social purpose. What is being talked about? FIELD Who are the participants and what is the relationship between them? TENOR What is the mode of the discourse? MODE What is the social purpose of the language? GENRE

Stage 1. Building The Field. Students become familiar with the subject Stage 1 Building The Field Students become familiar with the subject matter, or ‘field’ of what they will write about. Stage 2. Modelling/Deconstruction Students look at other examples of the same writing genre. At this stage, the teacher and students discuss the purpose of the writing, how it is structured, and relevant grammatical features. Stage 3 Joint Construction Joint construction, when students, altogether as a whole class, do a similar piece of writing with the help of the teacher. The students give ideas, the teacher writes what they say on the board. Together they talk about expression, grammar, vocabulary and so on. Stage 4 Independent Construction Students individually do their own writing using what they have learnt in the previous stages.

By using this approach, students learn to listen, By using this approach, students learn to listen, speak, read and write English, in the context of learning about a curriculum topic. They are also developing research skills and learning how to structure the different genres or types of texts, and the grammar which is associated with them. They are also learning how to talk about language, but in the context of actually using it. They are also learning subject content. See example.

Practical ways to increase responsibility for their learning. Frameworks Concrete examples Building on what students say Rephrasing Guided questioning Charts Picture cues Word lists Negotiation of texts before writing independently Body language and gesture Work from oral to written By using the above techniques teachers can structure the teaching/learning situations so that the students can be successful. For the ESL learner scaffolding is essential if he/she is to feel comfortable to take risks using English at school. Through scaffolding, the teacher is able to set the learner up to succeed in set tasks, when this happens, learning becomes intrinsically motivating