Instructional Scaffolding Strategies to Support the L2 Writing of EFL College Students in Kuwait

Abstract

This classroom-based study investigated the most frequently employed instructional scaffolding strategies to support second language (L2) writing by three English as foreign language (EFL) college teachers in Kuwait. Thus, this study had two aims: (1) to investigate the most frequently-used scaffolding strategies for teaching writing that were employed by the participating EFL teachers, and (2) to survey the students’ perceptions of their teachers’ scaffolding strategies. Data collection methods included classroom observations, a survey, and six group interviews with the three teachers. Microsoft Excel software was used to analyze the numerical data from the survey. The observations and interviews produced the most frequently used strategies for instructional scaffolding in the EFL writing classroom. The grounded survey items were gleaned from the data of the observations and group interviews. The survey was distributed among the students to gain their perceptions of their teachers’ instructional scaffolding strategies. The findings revealed that the three EFL teachers frequently employed the two scaffolding strategies of rhetorical scaffolding and prior knowledge scaffolding. However, they utilized contextual scaffolding and language development scaffolding to a lesser extent in the writing classroom. Implications included the need to orient EFL teachers through training courses on scaffolding strategies and their optimal applications in the writing classroom.