“The impact of teaching writing using question and answer scaffolding technique to the EFL learners 10-12 years old”
Introduction
This study investigates teaching writing by using scaffolding techniques. Educed from Sociocultural theory scaffolding and ZPD notions can help EFL learners in the process of writing. Here the scaffolding technique of question and answer is used. The teacher asks students a question about the topic and the learners using the linguistic and notional scaffolding answer to the question to form a piece of writing sentence by sentence. The answer to the first question forms the main idea of the paragraph and the answer to the next two or three questions forms the body of the paragraph and for the last part of the paragraph teacher ask a question that help students write a conclusion for the paragraph. Depending on the number of the paragraphs needed the teacher and learners continue this process until they each learner writes a coherent piece of writing. We choose 2 classes of EFL learners each with 20 students. First we have two pretests, one of them is a test of general English proficiency level and the other one is a writing test to compare with the posttest with the same topic at the end of term. One of the classes would be our experimental group that will receive the scaffolding treatment and the other class will be intact and continue the traditional way of teaching writing.
Statement of the problem
As it is always heard from the students writing is a difficult task in that they do not know where to start from and how to develop their ideas in order to have a coherent piece of writing. Using scaffolding writing techniques teachers would help their students in the first step to remove the barrier of where to start from and in the second step how to write what they have in their mind about the topic on the paper coherently. The focus of the current research is to investigate the impact of question and answer scaffolding technique on writing.
Research question and hypothesis
Question: Does teaching writing using question and answer scaffolding technique has any impact on the EFL learners writing ability?
Hypothesis: Teaching writing using question and answer scaffolding technique does not have any impact on the EFL learners writing ability.
Rationale of the study
With the spread of Sociocultural Theory in education from 1990 there is a growing body of studies on using different aspects of Sociocultural Theory in teaching EFL learners. Writing seems a hard task for the students and it seems a dependent task to do from the beginning of learning to write while it does not need to be so. Using scaffolding techniques teacher can step by step accompany the student to in the writing process in to tackle the barriers of starting and developing ideas.
Definition of key terms
Scaffolding: a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process.
Question and answer writing technique: the teacher asks a question to provide linguistic and notional scaffolding and the student answer will be a part of writing task.
EFL learner: learner who studies English as a foreign language.
Literature review
Sociocultural theory is developed by psychologist and psycholinguist Lev S. Vigotsky who believes that higher forms of human mental activities always mediated by symbolic means (Lantolf 1994). Just as humans interact with their physical world through objects Vigotsky believes that they also organize their mental processes by the use of symbolic tools. Humans use the existing cultural artifacts and will generate new ones in order to improve their activities.
Vigotsky acknowledged that human mind has a neurobiological base but he also believes distinctive consciousness dimension that make human beings capable of controlling over their biology through the use of cultural tools that are language, literacy, numeracy, categorization, rationality, and logic. These cultural tools are called “mediations” which act to mediate between the person’s individual and social world. As it is mentioned here language is a mediation tool that helps us make a relationship between our inner self and the society.
Sociocultural Theory argues that while human neurobiology is a necessary condition for higher order thinking, the most important forms of human cognitive activity develop through interaction within the social and material environments such as family life and peer group interaction, and in institutional contexts like schooling, organized sports activities, and work places, to name only a few (Lantolf and Thorne 2005). Thus, it will be useful to investigate how we can use Sociocultural Theory to improve second or foreign language learning.
As it is argued in SCT, the process of learning occurs through the social interaction therefore learning second or foreign language can be assisted by the use of different kinds of social mediation. These mediators can be classified from the broad category of physical objects to others’ help including teacher, peer, or even parents assistance.
Regulation is a kind of mediation (Lantolf and Thorne 2005?) which can be completed in three stages: object-regulation, other-regulation, and self-regulation. At the first stage learners can use objects as a regulator which in terms of language learning using realia would be a good example. In this stage the learner must rely on the objects as external support. The second stage includes direct and indirect mediation by other people that in terms of language learning teachers and peers are the best assistants.
The last stage that is self-regulation can be achieved when the learner is able to accomplish a task with the least or no needs of external help. This stage can also be called internalization. For example a learner can make a correct sentence after internalizing the needed rules and vocabularies without any external support. However one should remember that the self-regulation is not a stable condition (Lantolf and Thorne 2005) even for the native speaker of a language. Maybe sometimes they need to re-assess earlier stages (object-regulation and other-regulation). The order of these stages can change due to the required task.
Mediation can also occur through “symbolic artifacts” which control the individual’s psychological activities. These artifacts are inwardly or cognitively directed and using these artifacts is the distinctive feature of the human beings that make them able to assay a situation and consider alternative courses of action and possible outcomes on the ideal or mental plane before acting on the concrete objective plane (see Arievitch & Van der Veer, 2004).
Language is the most powerful artifact that humans use to mediate their relations to the physical world, others, and even themselves. One of the ways that we can regulate our mental functioning is through using second language by the mediation of “private speech”. Some research is done on the role of private speech in children language acquisition but in the realm of second language it is a rather new area of research and it is started by the work of Frawley and Lantolf (1985). This shows that this is a young field of study that a lot of research can be done in it.
An interesting part of the Sociocultural Theory is the Vygotsky idea about the imitation. As Vygotsky states, “development based on collaboration and imitation is the source of all the specifically human characteristics of consciousness that develop in the child” (Vygotsky, 1987, p.210) and as such imitation is “the source of instruction’s influence on development”(p. 211). Here the concept of imitation is different from what behaviorists believed in and was used in audiolingual method. Imitation needs not to happen soon after the first exposure rather it is better to occur with a delay of time, that is deferred imitation. According to Speidel (1989, p. 163), the deferred imitation is essential for the spontaneous speech. For example an adult student that is learning English as a foreign language imitating and repeating to himself what has been said in the class by the teacher when he is walking home after the class.
The other related notion to Sociocultural Theory is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which also has an effective position in applied linguistics. One of its common definitions is that it is the distance between learner’s current developmental status and what she/he can achieve under the guidance of adults or more capable peers. The concept of ZPD can be applied to language teaching and learning process in many different ways but it should be accompanied with cautious in order not to hinder the learner’s taking responsibility of his or her own learning. Putting students of different level of proficiency in the same group can be a situation where the so called weaker students can benefits the most and for the stronger ones it has other gains like reviewing what they know in order for their own knowledge assurance.
Lantolf (2000) states that:
In the light of discussion of internalization, we should appreciate controversies that have arisen in conjunction with how the ZPD is to be construed. Some researchers have assumed that the ZPD necessarily involve interaction between an expert and a novice in which the expert eventually transmits an ability to the novice through social interaction. This view of the ZPD has received substantial support from the work of Wretsch and his colleagues. However, several scholars are now calling for a broader understanding of the scope of the ZPD to include more than just expert/novice interaction (see Engestrom & Middleton1996; kuutti 1996; Wells 1996; Swain & Lapkin 1998).
Rather new approaches to second language learning using Sociocultural Theory seems challenging to the teachers and demands some knowledge and practices related to this theory to meet these challenges. One of these greatest challenges is that of instructing learners of a second language. Using ZPD teachers should teach their students that working jointly makes them able to co-construct contexts in which expertise emerges as a feature of the group.
Scaffolding is another related notion to Sociocultural Theory that the Glossary of Education Reform (2014) described it as below:
In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. The term itself offers the relevant descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student.
Scaffolding is widely considered to be an essential element of effective teaching, and all teachers—to a greater or lesser extent—almost certainly use various forms of instructional scaffolding in their teaching. In addition, scaffolding is often used to bridge learning gaps—i.e., the difference between what students have learned and what they are expected to know and be able to do at a certain point in their education. For example, if students are not at the reading level required to understand a text being taught in a course, the teacher might use instructional scaffolding to incrementally improve their reading ability until they can read the required text independently and without assistance. One of the main goals of scaffolding is to reduce the negative emotions and self-perceptions that students may experience when they get frustrated, intimidated, or discouraged when attempting a difficult task without the assistance, direction, or understanding they need to complete it.
Chaiklin (2003) believed that there is a misconception relating to the ZPD, which is easily the most widely used and yet least understood of the central concepts of SCT. Some erroneously thinks that the ZPD is the same thing as scaffolding or assisted performance but it is an inaccurate opinion. Scaffolding, coined by Jerome Bruner and his colleagues nearly three decades ago (see Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976), refers to any type of adult–child (expert–novice) assisted performance. This is not what the ZPD is about. For one thing, in such expert–novice interactions, the goal is to complete the task rather than to help the child develop, and therefore the task is usually carried out through other-regulation, whereby the adult controls the child’s performance instead of searching for opportunities to relinquish control to the child. Scaffolding, unlike the ZPD, is thought of in terms of the amount of assistance provided by the expert to the novice rather than in terms of the quality, and changes in the quality, of assistance negotiated between expert and novice (Stetsenko, 1999).
Fahim and Haghani (2012) in their study stated that the main idea of Sociocultural Theory is that social interaction is responsible for the development of higher order functions. In this regard it is believed that just the individual’s internal cognitive process cannot account for developmental process. The researchers should also consider the external social factors in the child’s environment. Children participate in activities which entail the use of cognitive and communicative functions and by doing so, these functions scaffold and nurture them in their developmental process. Hence in language classrooms successful instructions should be within the child’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) and also successful learning process cannot be an individual’s unmediated or unassisted effort but a collaborative and scaffolded process.
Eun and Lim (2009) in their article offered some suggestions for enhancing students’ second-language learning in their regular classrooms by applying sociocultural theories to practice. Their Socioculturally based implications for classroom teaching include bilingual instructions, focus on pragmatics, literacy instruction based on drama, inclusive learning environments, instruction based on children’s interests, and the teacher’s role as a facilitator mediating between students and their second-language learning environment (Eun & Lim 2009).
In his study Dang (2010) states that learner autonomy has been identified as a complicated capacity that potentially has a great impact on personal growth and achievement. Different mediated attributes associated with situational, psychological, cultural and political aspects of this construct have been developed and examined to facilitate the promotion of this educational goal. Taking this into account, his paper adopts socio-cultural perspective to localize the situation of EFL learning in higher education in Vietnam. Personal reflections and part of the data generated from a large-scale project were extracted to illustrate a dilemma of the context where learner autonomy can be either fostered or hindered deliberately within various community constraints. (Dang 2010)
Behroozizad, Nambiar, and Amir in in an attempt to change the traditional classroom status, uses sociocultural theory as an alternative through which learners’ strategy use and development can be mediated. Specifically, the study aims at investigating the role of classroom context as a mediating agent in the development of language learning strategies in a listening-speaking classroom. Employing a qualitative case study, the study collects data using observation, learner-diary and student and teacher interviews. The findings revealed that the construction of a socioculturally-designed classroom context by the teacher provided the participants with the opportunities to develop strategies in relation to interaction and self-confidence. The results of this study contribute to the reconfiguration of EFL classroom culture. The study also encourages teachers to create a simulated real-life context for learners and provide them with different opportunities to participate in class activities to improve their strategy use and development (Behroozizad et al. 2014).
In an investigation Dehqan and Ghafar Samar investigate the possible effect of implementing sociocultural techniques on reading comprehension development of Iranian EFL learners. The focus of this research has been on the impact of two different teaching techniques (scaffolding and non-scaffolding). The results of the study indicated that the scaffolding techniques (peer and teacher scaffolding) led to better reading comprehension development compared to the non-scaffolding group (Dehqan et al. 2014).
Scaffolded Writing is an innovative method of supporting emergent writing based on Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development. In their study, Anahgari, Hejazi, and Razmjou used Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and scaffolding learning of Gibbons (2002) as the theoretical basis to study the impact of scaffolding on EFL learner’ summary writing ability. The focus of the study was on the Content retention of the learners’ writings. The experimental group underwent scaffolding technique in which the learners were provided with constant helps from the teacher at the beginning and this help faded along the course upon the learners’ progress. On the other hand, the control group followed the instruction of the book without being helped in their writings. Comparison of the results obtained from the written posttest showed that the students in the experimental group outperformed the learners in the control group in their writings and remembered more details from the story (Ahangari et al. 2014).
According to Vygotsky (1978), a learner has the potential to progress from their actual developmental level to their potential developmental level via scaffolding that occurs during interaction with superior others. In a case study conducted by Khalilqadam based on Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of scaffolding within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), attempted to examine the role of scaffolding via communicative activities in terms of development of basic speech on foreign language adult learners. At first the six students were given the main words of the sentences and the students were required to create sentences. Each time the number of main words of the sentence in an activity has been reduced; therefore, the students had to create the sentences with the help of the teachers. Then a series of pictures were given to the learners and they had to tell a story based on the pictures. The teacher provided few guided words with them if necessary. At the end of the course, the learners' speech level had been improved surprisingly. The results suggest that scaffolding within ZPD has its share in learner's basic speech development (Khalilqadam 2014).
Adolescent students learning academic subject matter in a new language face a number of challenges, both local and global in nature, as they negotiate the linguistic, academic and social world of schooling. Making a case for a pedagogy of rigor and hope, Walqui presents a model of scaffolding that emphasizes the interactive social nature of learning and the contingent, collaborative nature of support and development. Drawing on Sociocultural Theory, as well as a large body of empirical research on effective practices with second language learners, she examines the use of specific types of scaffolding to promote linguistic and academic development. The model, developed by the author, conceives of scaffolding as both structure and process, weaving together several levels of pedagogical support, from macrolevel planning of curricula over time to micro-level moment-to-moment scaffolding and the contingent variation of support responsive to interactions as they unfold (Walqui 2010).
Method
Participants:
The study will be carried out with 40 EFL learners in two classes with each 20 students ranged from 10-12 age. The students share the same English classes for last 2 years in the same institute with the same teachers and students are all Farsi native speakers. The teacher of this study is the same for both classes.
Procedure:
In this study there are two groups; an experimental group and a control group. One of the classes will be chosen randomly to be the experimental group and the other one will be the control group. The experimental group will receive the treatment of scaffolding writing technique and the control group continues the traditional way of writing by just giving them the topic to write about. Two pretests would be applied; one for the general English proficiency the other one a test of writing at the beginning of the course to compare with posttest at the end of the course. There would be a posttest at the end of the course with the same topic of writing pretest that is going to be compared with the writing pretest.
Instrument:
A validated proficiency test, a writing pretest and a writing posttest with the same topic is needed.