The Scaffold / El andamiaje: 1

The Scaffold / El andamiaje: Helping Students Work Together

Bradley Robinson
Education 360

Abstract

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In this paper, I will explore my observation of a sixth grade Social Studies
class in urban middle school. During my time there I observed how the students
would work on completing assigned task, more specifically how they answered
written questions and how some of the English language learner students had
trouble finding the responses in the text. I worked with three different classes, and
in each class I worked with about eight students who were ELLs. I decided to make a
plan to have the students scaffold each other with my support to complete tasks so
that the student who was stronger in English can scaffold his or her partner. Finding
studies on from professional who were working with ELLs as well I was able to
create and execute my plan which was to show the students how to find answers in
the textbook or online and phrases the answer in their own words.

The Scaffold / El andamiaje: Helping Students Work Together

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Introduction
During my time observing I had the opportunity to work with three different
sixth grade Social Studies classes. At first, I thought I would be unhelpful because
my concentration is Spanish and not History but after my first day I noticed how
helpful I could be to the students. Many of the students in the class were English
languages learners. In each class the students were separated into groups of four
based on their grades. The students with the highest grades were able to work
independently. Also, these students had the greatest command of the English
language, on a level of Language Acquisition, I would I have to place them on
Advanced Fluency because they spoke fluent English without any noticeable errors
and could express their ideas clearly. The only distinction they had from native
English speakers is their accent which showed in the pronunciation of certain words.
However, the students with the lowest grades in the class had a much lower
command of the English language. Which was about eight students in each of the
three classes I had students who were on the Speech Emergence level of Language
of Acquisition. I noticed that when the students were assigned a packet of questions
the students on the Speech Emergence level had difficulty finding the answers to
the questions. The students had trouble using the textbook to find the main ideas
and more often than not could not summarize sentences or paragraphs to answer
questions. Instead, they would copy full paragraphs and sentences from the book
which was very time consuming in the forty-five-minute class. Also, when answering
the questions students lacked some tier one words that were needed to answer the
question, for example, jewelry, crops, and beads. Lucky I was able to give these
words to them because I knew the Spanish equivalent. Another problem I noticed
that the students displayed trouble forming complete sentences to answer the

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questions. Therefore my question during my field experience was: do students who
are learning English have a harder time finding answers to questions based on the
text because of their level of language acquisition.
Research on the Issue
Seeing how much trouble the students I was working with (who were the
students with lower grades) were having finding the answers in the text was
concerning to me. These students displayed varying levels of difficulties in forming
their answers, some students could not comprehend the text because at first glance
because they did not know where to even begin looking for the answer. Upon
researching the issue I found a study by Orly Lipka and Linda S. Siegelon on the
cognitive and linguistic factors that have an influence on reading and
comprehension for ESL speakers. These students were at various levels of Language
Acquisition and the lower level students showed the greatest struggle. This study
had many similarities to what I was facing in the classroom. It is important because
all students differ cognitively and that may affect their reading and comprehension
skills. Especially ESL students who are also learning a second language which is
another cognitive function that may affect reading and comprehension skills. In the
study, the researcher observed a classroom of students which had students with
poor comprehension skills but did not have problems with reading the words,
students with both poor reading and comprehension skills and students with who
could read and comprehended well. The research found that there were similarities
and differences in reading and comprehension skills between ESL and non-ESL
students. However, each grade level did better than the previous which showed the
longer students were in school the better their reading and comprehension skills

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would get. This showed that for students reading and comprehension skills have to
be taught rather than learned based on experience.
Next, I pondered on what could be keeping students from having
comprehension on what they are reading, this leads me to believe vocabulary
affected the students reading and comprehension skills. I found a study by Adel M.
Alharbi that investigated strategies English learners used to learn vocabulary and
which strategies ELLs found useful in terms of language proficiency. This is
important because Vocabulary learning strategies because vocabulary is necessary
to truly comprehend what is being read and they have to have an understanding of
the vocabulary to understand what the text is trying to convey. The ELLs involved
were one hundred and twenty participants who completed and an online survey. The
majority of the participants in the study were college students learning a second
language. The participants were divided into two groups, learners with a high
proficiency level and learners with a low proficiency level. This was determined
based on a self-identifying selection from the survey. The strategies that were used
by the ELLs were finding synonyms, learning definitions in context, pronunciation
and remembering a strategy for writing and bookmarking words in the context. The
researcher found that VLS is a sequential process that ELLs need to practice in
learning a new word. VLSs should continuously be introduced to ELLs from the early
stages of language learning and especially during vocabulary learning practices.
Also, students should be allowed to share their findings as a way to scaffold their
peers. Now I found this interesting because of the word scaffold. Scaffolding is a
temporary support for students from a more able person whether it be teachers or
student that helps the student reach a level where they can work independently.

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The final article proved to be the most helpful to me because I felt it was the
most practical to use for the students I was working with. A study performed by
Nathalie Gagn and Susan Parks studied if students at various levels of language
acquisition were able to scaffold each other in completing a cooperative learning
task in an ESL classroom. This problem is important because ESL students need to
be able to participate in class if an ESL teacher is unavailable at the time. The
participants in the study were two teams in ESL classroom grouped based on the
teacher's evaluation of their proficiency in English. The teams consisted one high
achiever, two average and one low achiever. Also, the teacher is a participant in the
study. The researcher found that students will able to carry out the task while
mainly using each others knowledge. When something was unknown to the
students the overall method used was to request the assistance of the teacher. This
showed me that is possible that students use each their classmates to help them
carry out a task, for example, completing a packet of questions like the students I
was observing. Based on my findings I devised a plan to help the students I am
working with.
Making a Plan
During my time observing at the school I have noticed that students were
having a difficult time finding answers in the text to their question. Many times what
I observed students doing was copying complete paragraphs or sentences to
answer short answer questions that should have been in their own words. Therefore,
I devised a plan to help these students. First, I noticed that the students were on
different levels of language acquisition. Therefore, many of the students that I
worked with were on the Intermediate Fluency or Speech Emergence. These were
the students which I paid close attention to were able to find the answer in the book

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but had trouble condensing it to their own words. The other students I worked with
that were only on Speech Emergence which means it was a little more challenging
for them to express their ideas in English, also when came time to use the text
these students really needed my guidance or the guidance from their peers. For
this, my plan on scaffolding is the one that I chose to use to help these students. I
found that the way the students were paired up was beneficial because more often
than not the students who were on Speech Emergence had a partner who spoke
their native language but also was on the Intermediate Fluency level in English.
These students who were on the Intermediate Fluency level would become a great
help because they had personal relationships with these students. The students on
Speech Emergence would be encouraged to communicate their ideas using as much
English as possible to strengthen their skills.
Putting the Plan into Action
The next time I observed the class the students were working on a PowerPoint
presentation and this is where I implemented my plan. The students were placed
into groups of two at the discretion of the teacher. Then I was instructed by the
teacher to help certain lower level students because they needed guidance on the
project. Yet again the students had a list of questions to answer for their
presentation and I began to notice a trend. Students would go on to Google and
type the entire question in and find the first website and copy the answers word for
word. Therefore, this is where I stepped in to show the students a more effective
way of researching their answers. For example I would ask the students what they
are looking for in the questions. They would respond that they are looking an
answer to a specific questions such as, When did the Shang dynasty rule? Their
first response was to immediately go to Google and type that question in the search

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engine, and this was their method of all the questions. So, I proposed to them that
instead of certain for each individual question they search Facts on the Shang
Dynasty. Now they started to understand that it easier to start their search off
broad and then narrow it down to specific details that would answer their questions.
But first I had the student stronger in the English language look for key words in the
paragraphs in order to construct their responses. Once they found the facts they
needed they could then read the sentence or sentences that answered their
question and phrase it into their own words.
The student who had a better fluency in reading English was the person I
targeted first because they were on their way to being able to complete the task on
their own according to the Zone of Proximal Development. The students who were
on the Speech Emergence stage still needed more of my attention so once I helped
the intermediate students they were able to scaffold their partner into a better
understanding. So once they heard my suggestions I started to see progress in their
work. Instead of searching for each individual questions I guided them to use
websites with complete information so they would be able to read and pinpoint
where the answer was. Next was the part where I saw the greatest improvements.
Once students found their answer they began to revert to old habits and copy the
answer word for word. However, the teacher instructed the class that what they
were doing is considered plagiarism. He asked me to share with the class what
happens when plagiarism on the college level and I explained to them the
repercussions that come with it. I told them that in college but in reality in all grade
levels there is Academic Integrity which we vow to do our own work and source
where we found our work. Failure to do this can result in failing or even being
suspended or expelled for plagiarism. Now that they were aware of what they were

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doing they began to try to summarize the information which they were very well at
doing. Since they were only in 6th grade the sentences were short and concise
however they got the point across just right. Occasionally a student would ask me
how to spell a word or to read their sentence to make sure it was written correctly
because it was on their PowerPoint. Since the students were used to cooperation in
the classroom by sitting in groups my plan to effect fairly quick
Personal Reflection
During my observation I was exposed to an environment different from what I
am used to. I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania my high school was not nearly as
diverse as the one I observed. That was the first aspect that I noticed. The
classroom was very multicultural and dynamic with all the differences that were
united by the purpose of learning. Also, I am used to very traditional schooling
where the students would sit in rows and the teacher would lecture for thirty
minutes leaving only the end of the class for students to work independently or
cooperatively. However here the students sat in groups of four and the teacher
allowed the students a lot of time for collaboration which was very beneficial for my
plan. Another aspect that was useful was my concentration in Spanish. Although I
was observing a Social Studies class I was able to make connections based on their
studies of different cultures. Also, many of the students come from Spanish
backgrounds which almost automatically made a connection between us. I am by no
means a native speaker but like many of the students I worked with I am on the
level of Intermediate Fluency in Spanish. I can relate on a personal level to these
students because all my of my Spanish class my professors speak only Spanish and
all the text is in Spanish, therefore, sometimes I rely on my bilingual classmates to
scaffold me to a better understanding of a task or text. I am pleased with the small

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changes I have seen in the classroom I observed. I know my time there was short
but after my last few days working with the class I was glad to see a decrease in the
plagiarism that the students were committing on their previous assignments. In
part, I believe it was due to the fact that teacher did ask me what happens when
you plagiarism in school. I feel as many of the students seen me as a role model
because some of the got very close to me and were upset to see me go however I
know that I made a small impact on these students. I hope they continue to support
each other by scaffolding each other to complete a task because I know there will
be continual gradual progress.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe my question was answered based on my observation,
which was do students on the Speech Emergence level did have more difficult time
with using the text to find answers. The solution, however, is short a temporary
support because the students can help each other on collaborative work but I do not
know how effective it will be when the students are working independently. This is
why it is important to continually strengthen their English skills so eventually they
are at a point where they can make sense of what they are reading and writing on
their own. What is important to remember is that these students made small
progress by seeing that copying word for word is time-consuming and may be
ineffective. If they continue to move away from that style of forming answers I am
sure there will be more improvement in the future. The next steps that are in order
to really help these students continue their growth in language acquisition is give
them more exposure. Maybe next time instead of grouping them with other Spanish
speakers they can be grouped with native English speakers to get more exposure.
Also trying to get them involved in activities that for the most part speak only

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English, for example many movies in the U.S have Spanish subtitles or dubbed in
Spanish instead of them relying on the Spanish they should watch and listen to it in
English to enhance their English speaking skills. To advance in language acquisition
it is important to expose them as much as possible to the language they are
learning.

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Bibliography
Alharbi, A. M. (2015). Building vocabulary for language learning: Approach for ESL
learners to study new vocabulary. Journal of International Students, 5(4), 501-511.
Retrieved from http://www.library.manhattan.edu/login?
url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1720062437?accountid=12258
Gagne, N., & Parks, S. (2013). Cooperative learning tasks in a grade 6 intensive ESL
class: Role of scaffolding. Language Teaching Research, 17(2), 188-209. Retrieved
from http://www.library.manhattan.edu/login?
url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1373085597?accountid=12258
Lipka, O., & Siegel, L. S. (2012). The development of reading comprehension skills in
children learning English as a second language. Reading and Writing: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 25(8), 1873-1898. Retrieved from
http://www.library.manhattan.edu/login?
url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1140127971?accountid=12258

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