Scaffolding Writing: Examining the Focus of a Teacher's Feedback to Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: Title: A Critical Look at Pedagogical Scaffolding During Literacy Instruction With Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes: Writing is a complex undertaking, particularly for emergent bilinguals (EBs), and teacher scaffolding is vital to helping EBs successfully engage in high-level tasks while continuing to develop language skills (Bunch, Kibler, & Pimentel, 2012). This study examines the focus of teacher and student talk during scaffolding interactions, specifically asking: What aspects of literacy and language do teachers focus upon when providing individual writing support to elementary EBs? To what extent does this focus vary among students with different assessed English language proficiencies?

Perspectives or Theoretical Framework: Effective scaffolding is contingent on students’ behaviors, responses, and needs, and is inherently collaborative and interactive (van Lier, 2004). However, providing effective scaffolding is complex for teachers, particularly in writing given the many elements of the task upon which to focus (e.g., Glasswell & Parr, 2009). Prior research has found that teachers can focus on the surface features of writing tasks (Matsumura, Patthey-Chavez, Valdés & Garnier, 2002) and that teachers take on work for EBs during scaffolding interactions (Kibler, 2011). However, we know little about the ways this may shift between different students during scaffolding interactions.

Data Sources: The sources from this study come from transcriptions from six audio and video-recorded observations (averaging 58 minutes each) of an experienced English Language Development (ELD) teacher in a classroom of fourth through sixth grade EB students in a large suburban district. Observations were conducted across a six-week argumentative writing unit.

Methods: After creating event maps (Castanheira, Green, Dixon, & Yeager, 2007) for each observation detailing the instructional focus of the lesson, teacher and student actions, and resources used, analysis focused on individual interactions between the teacher and students during independent writing. Each interaction was coded for participant, initiation (student or teacher-initiated) and every applicable focus (e.g., procedural vs. content-related aspects of task, surface features, explicit features of language, genre, and/or non-writing focused). Beginning with open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), I also drew on concepts in previous studies (e.g., Straub, 1997; Tunstall & Gipps, 1996) to create a coding scheme to systematically analyze all teachers’ and students’ utterances within interactions.

Results: Most interactions integrated a focus on the task, with occasional language-specific support. Far fewer of the interactions included an explicit focus on genre. However, scaffolding interactions also showed differences based on levels of language proficiency: students at higher assessed levels of language proficiency initiated more interactions, often with requests for procedural information. The teacher responded to these requests and then frequently transitioned focus to more content-related aspects of the task. The teacher initiated more interactions with students at lower assessed levels of language proficiency, many of which included a greater focus on language-specific aspects.

Scientific or Scholarly Significance: This paper contributes to an understanding of how scaffolding interactions can vary across students and shift between multiple aspects of language and literacy. It also provides theoretical and practical implications for developing teachers’ scaffolding practices, which are critical to supporting all EBs in developing English writing and language skills.

Author

• Lorien Chambers Schuldt, Fort Lewis College