The authors of this
article deconstructed the concept of scaffolding in order to make it usable by
ESL teachers in class. As I formerly thought that scaffolding mainly referred
to modeling, I believe that an interesting point the writers of this article
raised is that scaffolding refers not only to modeling but also to cues to
adopt new strategies, opportunities to practice and discuss the new strategies,
and immediate feedback. Thinking back on my second practicum, I can fairly say
that students really do need to be presented writing strategies in a
comprehensive way that not only involves modeling but direct dealing with the
given strategies, or else they might not fully comprehend and internalize them.
I also strongly believe that the authors are right in the way they see language
acquisition as they argue that it is okay for learners to incorporate the
language modelled during group discussion as the authors say it demonstrates
learners’ ability to master function and form. I trust that some language forms
cannot be directly explained (as they have no logical rule behind them) and
that the best way for a second language learner to use those given forms is
first to reproduce form what they have seen in authentic texts.
No comments:
Post a Comment