Laura Vegas Cruz

INDIVIDUAL WORK: SCAFFOLDING FOR READING COMPREHENSION

INTRODUCTION

Scaffolding is a process which tries to support student learning with the use of
concepts, materials and language tools. This process also enables the learners to apply the
strategies independently to improve their progress. In this individual project, it will be
carried out a lesson plan by using scaffolding strategies and following the Bloom’s
taxonomy. The lesson plan will be explained step by step providing examples of some of
scaffolding strategies. It is based on a text, so the reading comprehension skills will get
more attention.

The level chosen for this project is 1º de ESO in a non-bilingual high school,
therefore the English skills of the students are quite low (around A1-A2). The ESL book
selected is HIGH SCORE: Student’s Book 1 from Oxford University Press and the topic
chosen is about television and media from the unit 3 of the book. The text selected appears
at the beginning of the unit as an introduction of this vocabulary. This topic has been
chosen because it could be attracted to students, since they are close to television and it
is in their daily lives. Therefore, they can talk about their own experience. The text
selected could be found on the Appendix 1. Moreover, this lesson is contextualized in a
fifty-minutes lesson on Monday and there are 30 students in class. The class has a
traditional blackboard, an interactive whiteboard and a computer. The classroom has the
traditional organization of a Secondary classroom. Therefore, the communicative
activities and interaction are more difficult.

Now, the main objectives of the lesson plan will be described below:

- To know and understand basic vocabulary about television and media.

- To be able to identify the different types of programmes of TV.
- To be able to understand the text.
- To be able to talk a small conversation about their favourite TV programmes.

LESSON PLAN

The lesson plan will be divided into four parts: teaching (T), modelling (T),
practicing (St) and applying (St) because this instructional framework helps students in
their learning process. Moreover, the activities will follow the Bloom’s taxonomy, which
is divided into six sections: remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating
and creating. In addition, throughout the lesson, the teacher will pay especial attention to
the verbal communication in order to be understood by the students. To do so, the teacher
will use techniques, such as paraphrasing, reinforcing contextual definitions, using
synonyms and antonyms or corrective feedback.

The lesson starts with the teacher asking their students about how they are and
what they did last weekend to establish communication between them and introduce the
topic. Bloom’s taxonomy claims that the students should start a new topic by
remembering the knowledge they have about it. Therefore, after asking these general
questions, the teacher tries to activate background-prior knowledge by creating more
specific questions about television. The teacher should make different students participate
in this interaction, not only the usual ones. He or she could start asking how their weekend
was, what they watch on TV last weekend, what kind of programmes they like the most
or if they usually watched cartoons/sports programmes/the news.

It is necessary that some students answer the questions. However, it is also

important to mention that you could guide the conversation depending on their questions.
For example, if any of them hardly ever watches the TV, you can also ask him or her the
reason why he or she do not watch it. With this kind of questions, students can deduce
what they are going to study in the lesson. It is very relevant to try to facilitate student
engagement and participation. These questions could be considered as a warm up activity
in order to activate their knowledge. This interaction could take around 5-10 minutes.

Secondly, the teacher shows an original TV guide from Ireland on the interactive
whiteboard. The use of original sources is very important because the students are closer
to reality. In addition, it also encourages the knowledge of the Irish culture since the
programmes that Irish people watch on TV can tell us about their culture. This activity
requires more attention than the previous one. The teacher uses this activity to help
students to identify and locate the meaning of the words. Therefore, it could be said that
it belongs to the understanding step in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The TV guide provided is from the following website:

https://entertainment.ie/tv/all-channels/?date=16-04-2019&time=all-day

The teacher should make their students interest on the Irish television. It is also
used for identifying different types of TV programmes because this vocabulary will be
useful for the reading comprehension activity. Therefore, the teacher will teach key
vocabulary words before reading. The most important terms will be written on the
blackboard by creating a word wall which will make their vocabulary acquisition easier.
Some of the possible questions could be the following ones:

Here you have the Irish TV guide. In this TV guide, you can see the different
TV programmes that broadcast in Ireland today. Some of the programmes
are similar to the Spanish ones, right? Other programmes are only popular
in Ireland. Can any of you see a TV programme which also broadcasts in
Spain? What kind of TV programmes can you see on the TV guide? Does
anybody see cartoons? Which of the following programmes is a reality show?
Tell me different types of TV programmes that you can see on the TV guide
and examples that you watch.

As we can see, the teacher uses repetitions and different ways to express a question
in order to prompt students answers. Moreover, when a student says one type of TV
programme, the teacher writes the name on the blackboard, creating a chart with the most
important types of TV programmes and its corresponding example. Below, it can be seen
the table written on the blackboard by the teacher:

TYPES OF TV PROGRAMMES
Cartoons Sponge Bob
The news BBC News at Ten
Reality show Big Brother
Quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Film Captain America
Series - soap Game of Thrones
Comedy programme First Dates
Sports programme Premier League
Cookery programme Masterchef
The weather forecast BBC Newsline; Weather

The chart shows the key words of this unit. Therefore, the teacher says to her or
his students that they have to copy this table on their notebooks in order to schematise
these concepts and make them clearer. In addition, it is used as a graphic organizer to
offer a visual framework for assimilating this new information. This activity should take
short time, around 10 minutes. At the end of the activity, the teacher asks students if they
have any questions about it and if they understand all these terms.

Next, the main activity of this lesson plan takes place. The reading comprehension
part. The teacher will follow think alouds strategies for the reading by dividing the activity
into three sections: before reading, during reading and after reading. To introduce the
exercise and do the before reading part, the teacher explains the activity. The teacher will
ask if anybody could read the title of the text and what the title was suggested to him or
her. In addition, students have to say what they think about the text will be about and what
types of TV programmes are seen in other countries.

The students have to answer these questions and the teacher should try to make
an interaction and a fluent conversation. These questions allow students to activate their
knowledge and know the main content of the text, which will make it easier to understand.

After answering these questions, the teacher will select a student to start reading
the text. The teacher should try to select different types of students. At the beginning, the
teacher could ask if any of them wanted to read, but if the students who want to read are
the same as always, the teacher will select another student. In addition, as we can see, the
text is divided into four sections. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, this during reading
activity belongs to the applying part because students have to interpret the information of
the text. Therefore, four different students could read the text in order to make the activity
more dynamic.

The teacher could correct part of the pronunciation as a corrective feedback to

improve its pronunciation acquisition. After reading the first paragraph, the teacher asks
some questions about the first section like “have you understood the text?” or “do you
think the same as Paula? Is cable TV better than Public TV?”. These questions belong to
the during reading part.

Positive feedback is good for students because they feel that they are improving
and are doing a good job. Next, another student continues reading the text and the teacher
follows the same dynamic. The teacher could ask if they have any questions about
vocabulary and if they recognize new words that they have seen on the chart.
 In addition, it also important to make questions about what they are going to read
because they try to predict what it is going to happen. It makes its comprehension easier.

After completing the during reading part, the teacher will ask questions about the
text in general, starting the after reading part. The teacher should create a small interaction
between teacher and students. Some of the possible questions could be the following ones:

Who of these four people are the most similar to you? Before reading the text,
did you know what young people watch on TV? Has any of them surprised
you?

After this small interaction, the teacher will explain how they are going to work
the text. In pairs, they will have to do a worksheet about the text. They have to complete
the following table and answer some questions about the text. The pairs have to be
balanced. The teacher groups less experienced students with more experienced students.
These activities belong to the analysing steps according to Bloom’s Taxonomy because
the students have to organize their ideas about the text that they have just read.

1. Complete the table.

Hours watching TV Favourite programmes

Paula
Mamadou
Keiko
Yolanda

2. Answer the questions.

a) Why does Paula prefer cable TV?
b) Which channel is more interesting in Mali?
c) Which sport does Mamadou like more than watching TV?
d) Why doesn’t Keiko often watch TV this year?
e) Which programme is worse than Cuéntame?

The teacher will explain how to do these exercises. She or he does the first
question with the students in order to make it clear. It works as a model.
 While the students are doing their activities, the teacher walks around the class.
He or she should check that everybody is doing the exercises. In addition, she or he should
ask students if they have any problems and help them. After finishing the activities, the
teacher will correct them.

The teacher draws the table of the exercise 1 on the blackboard to correct it. It
helps to students whose level is lower. Then, the teacher also writes the answers of the
exercises 2 on the blackboard. The complete reading activity should take around 20
minutes.

After correcting the exercises, the teacher will explain the following activity. In
this activity, the students will practice the structures and the vocabulary that have seen
during the lesson. This part of the lesson belongs to the applying part because the students
will produce their knowledge autonomously a in a more open activity. Therefore, it also
belongs to the creating part of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They should be placed in pairs again.
They could do the activity with the classmate that is sitting next to them. It is an oral
activity. The students have some cards with different questions. They have to take one of
them and ask the question to her or his classmate. When the teacher says the word
“Change!”, one of the students in the pair should change his or her classmate and they
have to do the same with another classmate. This activity should take around 10 minutes.

Examples of cards:

How many channels

do you have on TV?
 When the activity ends, the teacher will say “Finish!” and the students start giving
the cards to the teacher. Finally, the teacher says good bye to his or her students and leave
the classroom.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, this session is based on scaffolding strategies. Some of the scaffolding
strategies that could be seen in this lesson plan are the activation background-prior
knowledge, the use of think alouds strategies, the use of verbal cues to prompt students
answers, participation and the student engagement or teaching key vocabulary terms
before reading, among other examples. These strategies are very important to develop the
learning process of our students because they make them more independent and resolute.

In addition, the lesson is completely adapted to our student’s level. Therefore, it

could be seen the use of repetitions and structures with verbal scaffolding. Moreover, it
is also seen the clear enunciation by the teacher and the corrective and positive feedback
in order to motivate them in their learning process.

In the procedural scaffolding, the teacher follows an instructional framework

which include explicit teaching, modelling, practicing and applying throughout the
lesson. As it is said before, it is also used personalize information with some questions by
trying to relate the topic to their daily lives. Moreover, the teacher also uses the activation
of prior knowledge and pairing activities. In the development of the activities, balanced
pairing students is very important for their learning process because it helps to do the
exercises.

Finally, in the instructional scaffolding, it is also used graphic organizers,

especially in the teaching of the new key words because it facilitates their learning.
Therefore, this complete and detailed lesson plan shows the main scaffolding strategies
that could be carried out in an English class.
APPENDIX
Appendix 1