How we scaffold language
- By scaffolding learning, teachers give guidance and support to students as they progressively develop independent use of the new knowledge or skill.
- Scaffolding requires careful analysis of the learning focus.
- Scaffolding also requires teachers to use a variety of instructional strategies to provide their students with support, guidance, and opportunities to practise working with the new learning.
Scaffolding
Most teachers are familiar with the concept of ‘scaffolding’.
Scaffolding can be thought of as the purposeful use of guidance and support (through using instructional strategies) while handing over responsibility progressively to the learner. The ultimate goal is for students to self-regulate their learning and develop independence.
(Ministry of Education, 2003b, page 79.)
The concept of scaffolding comes from the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978 and 1986) and his notion that learners learn most productively with support in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). This zone is where learners cannot yet operate fully independently but can complete work if they have appropriate support. Vygotsky saw learning as an intrinsically social process, happening through the relationships between people. He observed that what people are able to do and learn with the support of others exceeds what they can do on their own.
In their early language development, children begin by taking part in limited communications, in specific contexts, with the adults or children they are close to. Their language develops only through social interaction. Gradually, they add to these limited communications, internalise them, and widen them into a whole language system of inner speech that they draw on to express a wide range of concepts to themselves and to others. Refer to one of the Effective Literacy Practice books (Ministry of Education 2003b, page 20 or 2006, pages 20–21) for a description of the ‘socialisation model’ of literacy learning, which is built on the idea that learners construct meaning within social settings.
Scaffolding of learning also occurs in familiar, non-academic contexts, such as when:
- young children are being taught skills such as how to dress and feed themselves
- people of all ages are being taught a physical skill such as how to play a sport or use new equipment
- adults are being taught the processes and particular knowledge required in a new job.
