Scaffolding as Structure and as Process in
the Development of Oracy with
English Learners
Aída Walqui
Director, Teacher Professional Development Program
WestEd
awalqui@wested.org
www.wested.org/qtel
The CULI 6th International Conference 2006
November 28, Bangkok, Thailand
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
During this presentation
I will briefly address:
• How ESL work is different than EFL work
• The theoretical basis of my work
• The process of apprenticeship in teacher professional
development
I will expand a bit more on:
• Scaffolding as structure and as process
• An instantiation of these two aspects in the
apprenticeship of a teacher
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
A sociolinguistic look at L2s:
Foreign Lg.
Second Lg.
•
Student does not need L2 to
interact in country of residence
•
The language is required for
effective civil participation
•
Standards for proficiency are quite
tolerant
•
Standards for proficiency are very
demanding
•
The L1 of the student is valued and
unquestioned
•
Value of students’ L1 is not
appreciated by many
•
The FL does not displace the L1
•
Over time L1 is displaced by L2
with severe consequences
•
Leads to “elite” (Fishman) or
“elective” (Valdés) bilingualism
•
Leads to “folk” or “circumstantial”
bilingualism
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Teaching English as a Second
Language in the United States
• An activity directed at minorities
• Stigmatized
• Increasing Educational Gaps in the system between
majority and minority students
• Three demographic facts to illustrate the point…
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Demographic changes: Population of ELs by state, 2003-2004
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
The big surprise:
More adolescent ELs are native than foreign born
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Average scores of 8th graders in reading
by English language proficiency and state: 2003
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Quality Teaching for English Learners
(QTEL) is based on
Sociocultural Theory
• Development follows learning (therefore, instruction
precedes development)
• Participation in activity is central in the development of
knowledge
• Participation in activity progresses from apprenticeship to
appropriation, from the social to the individual plane
• Learning can be observed as changes in participation over
time
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Quality Teaching with ELLs
Is premised on apprenticeship notions of schooling.
This means that students:
• Are perceived and treated as capable, legitimate
participants
• Engage in rich, intellectually demanding interactions
that have been deliberately crafted
• Engage in high challenge, high support tasks that
provide them with multiple points of entry to the
academic community
• Takeover responsibilities that are handed over to them
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Teachers going through QTEL professional
development also learn by participating
in activity
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
During professional development, teachers work through tasks.
This enables them to understand the language and pedagogy
necessary to implement tasks, and builds the base for
pedagogical reflection
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Other activities in QTEL’s teacher
professional development portfolio
• Coaching
• Collaborative Lesson Planning
• Video Clubs (adaptation of Lesson Study)
• Intervisitations
• Professional Conferences
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Domains of Teacher Expertise QTEL
Professional Development Addresses
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
CONTEXT
Motivation
reasons
incentives
emotions
CONTEXT
Vision (beliefs)
of teaching
of students
Reflection
1. anticipatory
2. active/interactive
3. recollective
mindfulness
CONTEXT
Knowledge
subject matter (ELD)
pedagogical
pedagogical subject matter
students
self
Practice
CONTEXT
enactment of learning
contingent scaffolding
ongoing assessment Walqui, 1997, adapted from Shulman, 1995
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Teacher expertise
• ESL teachers: Specialists in taking students from
zero level of proficiency in English to a “threshold
level” of understanding and performance in the
language
• Disciplinary teachers: Take students from that
threshold level and teach them at the same time
the concepts and relationships studied by the
discipline and the language needed to express,
discuss, and create within that field
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
The emphasis of scaffolding
(from the students’ point of view)
• Is on students’ learning potential
• Is not on students’ current abilities
• Consequently, we raise the expectations about what
is possible: Vygotsky’s notion of prolepsis
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Scaffolding takes place within four
types of relationships that need to
be well constructed in classrooms
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
An Expanded ZPD
Resourcefulness, Self-access
Inner Resources:
knowledge,
experience,
memory
investment
Assistance from
more capable
peers or adults
Scaffolding: Modeling…
SELF
REGULATION
Interaction
with less
capable peers
“Docendo discimus” (We
learn by teaching)
Interaction with
equal peers
“If one member of a
dyad undergoes
developmental
change, the other is
also likely to do so”
(Bronfenbrenner 1979:65)
van Lier, 2004
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Scaffolding: How does the teacher
make it happen?
Is a dynamic and situated act that is responsive to a
particular set of circumstances in a particular
classroom context. It manifests itself:
• when teachers plan what to do in a classroom with
specific students to ripen their potential
(anticipatory reflection)
• when they act contingently in a class to support the
development of new skills or understandings
(scaffolding as process)
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Two Elements of Scaffolding:
• Conventionalized, ritual structure (constant and flexible):
teachers scaffold as they prepare tasks for their students, know
what they are good for, decide when they are appropriate, how
they connect to each other
• An interactional process, jointly constructed from moment to
moment: teachers scaffold as they support students’ interactions
The process is enabled by the scaffolding structure, and a constant
evaluation of the process indicates when parts of the scaffolding
structure can be dismantled or shifted elsewhere
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Principles of Quality Teaching with
Second Language Learners
• Sustain Academic Rigor in teaching English Learners
• Hold High Expectations in teaching English Learners
• Engage in Quality Interactions with English Learners
• Sustain a Language Focus in teaching English Learners
• Develop Quality Curricula in teaching English Learners
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
The Development of Academic Uses
of English
• Different disciplines use the same language
differently for specific purposes
• Academic uses of language, therefore, need to be
taught within the disciplines, by subject matter
teachers
• Within disciplinary language we use the concept of
genre
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Genre
Staged, goal-oriented, purposeful communicative
events that a community of practitioners share.
• Purpose
• Structure
• Preferred linguistic instantiations (taking situation
into account)
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Oral Development Jigsaw: From Description
to Narrative
BASE GROUP
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
C C C C
D D D D
A B C D
A B C D
EXPERT GROUP
A A A A
B B B B
BASE GROUP
A B C D
A B C D
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Teacher scaffolds the process:
Guidelines for the apprenticeship of
the genre: description
Discusssion of purpose: why do people describe scenes
to others?
Structure:
• Where does the scene take place?
• Who is the central character(s) in the picture?
• What does this person look like (approximate age,
sex, height, face, hair, clothes)?
• What is this person doing?
• Any other relevant information?
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Preferred language: Teacher offers
models of language that students
may use:
• This scene takes place in …
• My picture shows …
• The picture I have shows a …
• The central character in my picture is
• In my picture you can see a …
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Oral Development Jigsaw
BASE GROUP
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
EXPERT GROUP
A A A A
B B B B
C C C C
D D D D
Genre:
Description
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Apprenticing a Second Genre:
Narratives… Short Stories
Discussion of purpose: Why do people tell stories?
Structure:
• Setting, title
• There is a central character (and other character/s)
• Something happens to the character
• Resolution
• The event transforms the character
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Oral Development Jigsaw
BASE GROUP
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
C C C C
D D D D
Description
A B C D
From
Description
To
Narrative
EXPERT GROUP
A A A A
B B B B
BASE GROUP
A B C D
A B C D
A B C D
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
What would we see in a QTEL class?
• Students apprenticing disciplinary English from the
teacher and from each other
• Students getting multiple opportunities to use the
language in deliberate, purposeful ways
• Students gradually appropriating language that
initially they did not have
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
The Apprenticeship of One Teacher
• Teacher: Roza Ng
• School: MS 131, Chinatown, New York City
• Students: Range of recent arrivals in the U.S.
between three years and three months
• Issue that moved Roza to participate in QTEL
professional development: traditional, teacherfronted class
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003
Change is possible, but it requires
• Systematic work
• Long, sustained, coherent teacher professional
development
• Building communities of teachers who are
supportive of each other in the same way that they
need to be supportive of their students
• Visions of the possible guiding the work
© WestEd, Teacher Professional Development, 2003