The Effect of Scaffolding Instruction on Students’ Writing Skills

Abstract

Writing is a device used for intensifying and expanding the students ‘knowledge in diverse subject matters. Lacking the skill to write effectively may lead students to have deficient outcomes in their academic and professional career. This paper aims to reveal the effectiveness of scaffolding instruction in the teaching of writing skills. It examines the correlation between the first variable; teaching learners how to write effectively (through the medium of scaffolding instruction); it means the significance of the teacher’s help to facilitate learners’ alteration from assisted tasks to autonomous performances- which leads to the second variable-to improve learners’ mastery of the writing skills. To conduct our study we designed a students’ test to explore the learners’ use of writing skills. Two groups were chosen randomly (both groups consist of 30 students). At the beginning of the year, a pre test was directed to both groups at the same time. Unlike the control group, the experimental one received a treatment phase consisting of teaching the writing skills through the means of scaffolding instruction which lasted for eight weeks. Subsequent to the treatment phase, the researcher administered a post test which is the same as the pre test in terms of partition and questions but only different in content to avoid any probability of the students remembering some sentences or topics from the pre test; consequently, to avoid biased results. The attained results have revealed an augmentation of the experimental group performance. Therefore, the significance of scaffolding instruction on improving learners’ mastery of the writing skills has been confirmed.