Scaffolding and the Teaching of Writing Within ZPD: Doing Scaffolded Writing (A Short Case Study)

Abstract

This paper aims at explaining the concept of scaffolding within ZPD, providing in-depth analysis, and illustrating how scaffolding, as a tool of assistance, can be used in the teaching of writing. Scaffolding, as a concept, has been originated from Vygotsky’s theoretical notion- the zone of proximal development (ZPD). As it is known, ZPD has been originally constructed to account for the gap between the actual level and the potential level of development of the individual learners. Briefly, the first part of the paper showed how the notions of ZPD, internalization and the concepts of activated learning and collaborative writing within ZPD were briefly presented in the literature review. Likewise, the second part of discussed important concepts in the literature such as scaffolding, principles of scaffolding, scaffolded writing, scaffolding learning. In the third part of this paper, different studies of scaffolding and the teaching of writing in the EFL contexts were briefly discussed and critically presented. The last part of the study briefly presented and discussed the findings of a short one-month case study of my five-year-old son.