SCAFFOLDING IN CLIL
EXPLORE THE ROLE OF SCAFFOLDING IN CLIL
The word
“scaffolding” used for an educational purpose was first used by Wood, Bruner
and Ross in Wood et al. (1976). In an educational context scaffolding refers to
giving support to learners so that they can ‘move forward and continue to build
new competencies’ (Bigge et al. 1999).
An example of scaffolding is the process of learning
to write. First, children are asked to write a word below a picture, then a
short sentence, then they have to add adjectives until they are asked to write
the description of an object. The teacher will probably make the pupils talk
about certain characteristics: size, colour, use and so on. Then the pupils
will have to think of an object and write the description following a guideline.
These descriptions will become more complex to the point they will not need the
teacher’s support.
The theoretical
background of scaffolding relies on Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (Z.P.D.).
Vygotsky defined the Z.P.D. as “the gap between what a child can achieve alone,
their ‘potential development determined by independent problem solving’, and
what they can achieve ‘through problem solving under adult guidance or in
collaboration with a more capable peer’” (Wood, 1996) This means that there are
tasks that children cannot perform on their own, but which they can achieve
with help from others, whether it is a teacher, a parent or peer. This process,
as Bigge (1999) explains, helps the children invoke mental functions that are
still in process of developing.
The child is no more
a passive agent receiving knowledge but an active agent constructing his/her
own knowledge. For this to happen, he also claims that interaction with others is necessary:
‘the
learner does not learn in isolation. Instead learning is strongly influenced by
social interactions, which take place in meaningful contexts. Children’s social
interaction with more knowledgeable or capable others and their environment
significantly impacts their ways of thinking and interpreting situations’ (Van Der Stuyf, 2002, p. 6)
Bruner and other
educational leaders were the first to use the metaphor of “scaffolding”. He
believed adults can support children by scaffolding their learning. He
advocated that the adult should assist the child to move from where they are to
where they want to go.
Bruner also
introduced the term spiral curriculum, which means that any subject can be
taught to any age by adapting it to the learners’ capabilities. In this case,
scaffolding is also needed.
With a constructivist
approach the teacher’ role changes: the role of the teacher is to support the
learner’s development and provide support structures to get to the next stage.
As the learner’s abilities increase, scaffolding is gradually removed until the
learner is capable of completing the task by him/herself. Additionally, the teacher has to observe when
a learner might not be able to make progress alone and provide him/her with the
right scaffolding that will move him/her higher.
Bloom’s taxonomy also
plays an important role when scaffolding. Whereas Vygotsky’s theory describes
the assistance that a teacher gives a learner, the former helps teachers
identify the cognitive skills they want learners to practice in a lesson. In
other words, it shows what goals teachers should have in mind when describing
activities.
Scaffolding in CLIL is
needed both for language and content. Regarding language, our pupils do not
have enough command of the language so we, as teachers, have to provide them
with the language (language of/for) they will need at each stage. There will be
times in which some pupils will need to go further (language through) and we will
have to help them achieve what they want.
Regarding content, we should lead pupils from simple
activities which they can relate to their previous knowledge to more complex
ones. This is not an easy issue. When planning a lesson we might have
scaffolded the contents considering the majority of our pupils and we might
have anticipated where they will have to struggle, but in practice we have to
be more flexible and be ready to scaffold difficulties which may appear at any
time because each pupil, as an individual, is different and he/she might get
stuck at a point of the process we had not foreseen.
A scaffolding
strategy could be started by making a question about the new topic so that I
can elicit what the pupils know. This makes them relate their previous
knowledge to what they know and I write their answers on the board. Sometimes
we decide what we want to learn about the topic and we search the information
in sources I give them. Otherwise, they would not know where to seek. If
several questions are to be answered, I arrange them in small groups and each
group finds a piece of information. Each group is given a guideline. Once they
have all the information, they report it to the rest of the class and sometimes
we make a display with all the information compiled.
REFERENCES
Bigge et al (1999) Learning Theories for Teachers. New
York: Longman pp. 130-131
Bruner, J (no date) Interactive Learning for early education and
childcare www.
rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk/project_pages/docfiles/health_social_care/index.pps
(Access date 10 March 2009)
Larkin, M (2002) Using Scaffolded Instruction to Optimize
Learning www.vtraide.com/png/ERIC/Scaffolding.htm
(Access date 10 March 2009)
Van Der Stuyf, R
(2002) ‘Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy’ Adolescent
Learning and Development p. 2-13
Wood, D (2001) Scaffolding, contingent tutoring and
computer-supported learning in Interaction Journal of Artificial
Intelligence in Education http://aied.inf.ed.ac.uk/members01/archive/vol_12/wood/full.html
(Access date 10 March 2009)
www.answer.com (Access date 11 March 2009)
http://
learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/3000/3100_4/3130/3131.html (Access
date 11 March 2009)
http://www.education.vic.gov.au
(Access date 11 March 2009)
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