Scaffolding for English Language Learners
Scaffold
Why use it
Provides clear examples.
Examples
Introducing routines, procedures,
tasks, and products.
Imitation is an early state in learning.
Modeling
Bridging
Provides explicit guidelines and standards for
student work.
Use work samples from other
students.
Provides a text for analysis and learning.
Connects new information into existing
mental structures (Tharp & Gilmore)
Using a finished product when
giving directions for a project.
Anticipatory guides and ThinkPair-Share.
Linking new knowledge to prior knowledge.
Brainstorming and KWL charts.
Establishes a personal link between students
and the material taught.
Makes language more comprehensible.
3-step interview.
Reduces cognitive demands.
Using analogies and metaphors
derived from students’
experiences.
Enhances recall through the creation of
Contextualization complex memories.
Hands-on activities.
Framing questions.
Makes language accessible and engaging by
bringing complex ideas closer to the students’
own experience.
Provides students with a conceptual map.
Schema Building
Venn Diagram.
Helps to process information top-down.
Word/Semantic webs.
Helps to distinguish between central and
peripheral information.
Advance organizers.
Helps students to establish the connections
that exist between and across concepts.
Encourages higher order thinking skills.
Text
Representation
Labs and demonstrations.
Compare/Contrast matrix and
Discourse Analysis.
Think-aloud.
Makes genres explicit.
Reciprocal teaching.
Helps students think about the audience.
Learning logs and KWL charts.
Allows for different learning styles.
Invites students to extend their understanding
and apply it in new formats.
Makes the learning process explicit.
Metacognitive
Development
Provides students with learning strategies.
Fosters student self assessment and selfmonitoring.
Think-aloud.
Allowing students to select their
preferred learning strategy.
Rubrics.
Provides students with skills and vocabulary
to talk about their own learning
Walk-through Observation Reference
Think-Pair and Share.
Scaffolding for English Language Learners
SCAFFOLDING INSTRUCTION
The following six ideas were shared by Aida Walqui at the Disciplinary
Literacy Institute on March 13-14 in Springfield, MA.
Many of the instructional tasks described below employ grouping
structures familiar in cooperative learning literature.
1. Modeling - students see or hear samples of what is requested.
Students imitate models of effective writing, speaking, reading, and
problem solving. The whole class may engage in an activity that is
later reenacted in pairs, threes, or groups of four. Students work with
photocopied samples of student work to guide their own thinking.
2. Bridging - student share their previous knowledge and
understandings and build on them weaving new information into
existing mental structures.
3. Contextualization - students work with manipulatives, pictures,
two-minute videos, and other objects or sources of information to
construct meaning. The teacher may provide useful analogies or
metaphors to bring complex ideas closer to the students' world
experience.
4. Schema building - students work with advance organizers, graphic
organizers, or other ways to see the big picture first before studying
the details. Class agendas may be posted on the wall, or the teacher
may provide an overview of the parts of a lesson before getting into it.
5. Metacognition - students receive explicit teaching of strategies for
thinking and problem solving as they engage in reading, writing, or
inquiry tasks. They reflect on where they are in a process and how
they are thinking about their own thinking.
6. Text Re-Presentation - students have opportunities to represent
their understanding of written or spoken words through scripts, skits,
or enactments. Other types of genre transformation include
representing a poem as a narrative, changing a third-person historical
narrative into an eye-witness account, or expressing scientific text as
letter to a friend or a poster.
Walk-through Observation Reference