Scaffolded Learning: Transitioning from Assistance to Independence

As Vygotsky (1987) puts it, “what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow” (p. 211). Inheren in Vygotsky’s message is the notion of scaffolded instruction which refers to the sort of help provided by a teacher or peer to facilitate learning (Lipscomb, Swanson & West, 2012). Through scaffolding the teacher smoothes students’ transition from assisted tasks to independent performances providing the learner with sufficient guidance until the process is learned, and then gradually removes the supports in order to shift the responsibility of performing the task to the student (Palincsar, 1998).

Scaffolded instruction is underpinned by Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) idea of the zone of proximal development

158). He adds that this kind of help can be represented in the form of writing frames. Wray and Lewis (1998) note that:

A writing frame consists of a skeleton outline given to students to scaffold their non-fiction writing. The skeleton framework consists of different key words or phrases, according to the particular generic form. The template of starters, connectives and sentence modifiers that constitute a writing frame gives students a structure within which they can concentrate on communicating what they want to say while it scaffolds them in the use of a particular generic form. By using the form students become increasingly familiar with it. (p.

4), can facilitate communication (Nattinger & DeCarrico,1992), contribute to naturalness in language use (Millar, 2009, as cited in Allen, 2009) and in turn create more native-like sentences (Nation, 2001). However, “misuse of formulaic language has been shown to be a potential source of communication difficulties” (Millar 2009, cited in Allen, 2009, p.106), creating barriers to effective communication (Karami, 2013). Hence, one of the areas most susceptible to interlingual transfer is collocation and multi-word sequences, especially where the first language does not correspond with the target language in terms of collocational patterns. Previous studies (e.g., Altenberg & Granger, 2001) show that, familiarity with patterns that diverge from those in L1 diminish the risk of negative