The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction Into Writing Teaching In Senior High School

Scaffolding Instruction, which is based on the Vygotskian theory----the zone of proximal development and socio-cultural theory, is a new teaching model that advocates student-centered learning. It emphasizes that learners construct knowledge from experience with supportive scaffolds from either the educator or a more skilled peer. A teacher designs some effective classroom activities for leading into a certain situation and making scaffolds to help learners complete meaning-constructing. It is also a great help to organize writing teaching in senior high school. The author designed the writing procedures as follows:setting up scaffolds---- entering the scene independent exploration----evaluation. The present research was carried out in the following way. First, the subjects of this research were chosen from Yongchun No.5 Middle School, and they were randomly assigned into two classes. There were no significant differences in terms of their age, gender and educational background. Both classes were taught by the present author, using the same instruction curriculum in the same teaching periods. Secondly, during the one-term experiment, the author adopted scaffolding instruction in the experimental group while traditional instruction in the control group. The raw data were collected and percentages were employed to reveal whether the subjects achieved significant improvement in writing performance. Thirdly, a questionnaire was delivered twice to investigate the differences that have taken place after the experiment. Finally, the findings were analyzed and discussed. The major findings are:(i) The scaffolding instruction can promote the students' writing performance; (ii) The scaffolding instruction can stimulate the student's writing interest, improve their writing skills and transform their opinion towards teachers'teaching.