Scaffolding

David Wood and his colleagues (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976) were the first to use the word 'scaffolding' in an educational context. They defined scaffolding as 'a form of adult assistance that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond the child's unassisted efforts'.

Scaffolding is very similar ' to the concept of the 'zone of proximal development'. The scaffolding is the assistance from peers or an adult.

In Thought and Language Vygotsky (1962) referred to several types of assistance that might be given when a child was engaged in a problem-solving activity:

• providing the first step in a solution
• asking a leading question
• explaining
• supplying information
• questioning
• correcting

'Ddifference that makes the difference' (Webster et al., 1996, p. 151) was how teachers 'scaffolded' the learning process. By 'scaffolding' they meant 'the complex set of interactions through which adults guide and promote children's thinking'. This definition emphasised that 'scaffolding' was much more than teachers simply providing help. It was a collaborative process involving dialogue in which learners had as important a role as teachers making the child explain.

Scaffolding involves:

• getting children involved in the task
• helping children to represent tasks in terms they understand
• helping children to adapt and develop concepts
• helping children to externalise their learning. listening to how the children are pursuing the learning activities
• reviewing the process of learning and its worth

Here is an example of using scaffolding is in a recent English as a Second Language (ESL) lesson I taught. The lesson started with a warmer for which I moved all furniture out of the way; this was the prepares for assembly (PFA) stage. I then gave the students instructions “Take it in turns to run to the board, grab a pen, write 1 word which is related to the topic, run back and bass the pen to a team mate, the team with the most words, wins” This is Specific Verbal Instruction (SVI), as I was saying this I ran to the board, grabbed a pen and wrote down a word, then I ran to a student gave them the pen and told them to GO! This was the Demonstrate (DEM) stage. This introduced the topic, which in my opinion was a General Verbal prompt (GVP) stage. Once students were on topic we had a discussion and moved on to the target language for the lesson. I introduced some new vocabulary, "If something is glamorous and shiny, how else might we describe it? Its 6 letters, first letter is G"  another example of GVP. I wrote five blank spaces on the board G _ _ _ _ _ , students started to guess other letters; GL_ _ZY, a student's shouts “Is it glitzy”, I reply ‘Yes, well done”, praising his enquiry skills. This process goes on for other words and phrases using other methods such as mime, pictures and descriptions once again utilising the GVP stage. Later we looked at a reading comprehension with all the vocabulary (which I anticipated would cause problems) highlighted, this was the vocabulary we went through earlier on, this made use of the Indicates Materials (IM) stage. The students answered various comprehension question then we had another discussion followed by a role play. The role play was demonstrated with two strong students, using DEM once again. To finish off students were tested on the target language. I handed out two piles, pile was definitions the other was the target language. "Now, in pairs, I want you to match the correct definition (pointing to the pile of definitions) with the correct word (pointing to the pile of words), Maritsa, what do I want you to do" Maritsa repeats to check understanding and instruction; this incorporated GVP (giving instructions) and IM (pointing to each pile).