Scaffolding Strategies in Teacher and Peer Collaborative Dialogues

Although the fruitfulness of scaffolding, as a core tenet of Sociocultural Theory, has been confirmed within the realm of additional language learning, there is still controversy about how teachers and peers provide different type and amount of scaffolding. The present study aimed to investigate the mechanisms that underlie the provision of scaffolding from the teacher and the peers in collaborative dialogues. The participants were 60 female Iranian EFL learners who constituted the two groups of the study. Depending on their experimental condition, participants received scaffolding either from the teacher or a peer during collaborative dialogues. The qualitative analysis of the scaffolding episodes demonstrated that both the teacher and the peers provided scaffolding to their interlocutors, albeit in diverse ways. Scaffolding strategies used by the teacher were corrective feedback, waiting, and explanation in L2, respectively. Peers’ scaffolding strategies were corrective feedback, waiting, co-construction, explaining in L1, and calling the teacher for help. The findings suggest that peers help each other through collaborative dialogues with numerous and alternative ways of scaffolding. The study paves the way for more elaboration on the cardinal concept of student-centeredness in the process of scaffolding during L2 production.

کلیدواژه ها:

scaffolding ، collaborative dialogue ، teacher scaffolding ، peer scaffolding ، sociocultural theory