Scaffolding by Marta Braylan

BUILDING SCAFFOLDS

Vygotsky wrote, "What the child can do in cooperation today he can do alone tomorrow."(1934).

Scaffolding is used by teachers to support learners. It refers to a temporary supporting structure that students learn to use and to rely on, in order to achieve learning outcomes.
Scaffolding helps students to access previously acquired learning, to analyze it, to process new information, to create new relational links, and to take their understanding several steps further.

Some practical examples of scaffolding strategies:

• Brainstorming a topic 
• Using graphic organizers such as Venn diagrams, tables and charts
• Having students develop their own definitions of terms
• Providing reinforcement for attempting to speak, then for a partially right answer and then for the right answer
• Assessing obstacles to learning
• Breaking material into chunks and reframing information
• Using pictures and realia
• Having students sum up text by writing headlines for each paragraph
• Having students transform text into pictures or graphics
• Giving clues and asking follow up questions
• Modeling and offering samples of similar assignments
• Providing authentic context to language and activities
  
  
  Why is Scaffolding so important for CLIL teachers?

CLIL teachers need to build: 

1. on what the students already know or hypothesize about a topic or subjectsubject
2. from the language the students already may know
3. on the thinking skills they already use in L1 

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