Scaffolding
◎Aim
Think of the scaffolding on a building. It allows you to build a construction, and as you do this, scaffolding prevents it from falling down. When the construction is stable, the scaffolding is removed and it can finally stand on its own. Educational scaffolding follows this analogy, so as you develop skills in your learner, you need to support this process before they can perform on their own. When they have acquired those skills, you remove that support.
1Lower level scaffolding
At lower levels, practice activities can be supported with examples and models. Beginner materials are very heavily scaffolded.
1Examples
Provide the solution for the first exercise.
2Controlled practice
Complete the dialogues. Then listen and check.
3Substitution
Use brackets to show where information can be substituted in a dialogue.
4Dialogue completion
Provide part of the dialogue.
2Higher levels
At higher CEFR levels, scaffolding should be less obvious but still present. The goal is to guide learners toward autonomy while keeping the activities communicative and meaningful.
1Prompts and cues
Offer minimal but targeted prompts to help learners recall structures or vocabulary.
2Guided tasks
Provide frameworks rather than full examples.
3Language bank
Supply a short list of useful phrases that learners can refer to when needed.
4Stem sentences
Use sentence beginnings to support learners.
3Lesson progression
Regardless of level, there should be a gradual removal of support during a lesson. As the lesson progresses, the level of scaffolding drops, so you might start with a simple gap fill, but later the students will have to do something more challenging.
Progressively reduce the number of cues and prompts. For example, during the guided practice phase, allow learners to refer to model phrases, but in the final production or role-play task, ask them to perform without notes.
4A typical lesson scenario
- Learners read/listen and answer questions.
- Learners do gap fill or categorisation in controlled practice tasks (select, or drag and drop).
- Learners write down words from memory in practice tasks (gap fill text).
- Learners complete stem sentences in free practice tasks.
- Learners use target language in a free production task.
Blended solutions could generally only do the first three stages, but more recently AI conversational assistants have been used to assess free practice and take part in production tasks.
✓Key takeaway
Scaffolding supports learners early on and is gradually removed as they become more independent. The right amount of support depends on level, task type, and lesson stage.