Developing independent writing skill through scaffolding in secondary level schools of Bangladesh

Abstract

This study investigates an important area of English language teaching and learning. In Bangladesh it is acknowledged that the students suffer a great deal of complications because of their poor level of writing ability. In Bangladesh Shil and Rahman (2020), presented that writing in English becomes complicated because it has many parts of language; such as- sentence structure, words and transmission of these parts in written forms. In this regard scaffolding strategy helps the learners to develop their ideas. Padmadewi and Artini (2018), asserted that in the scaffolding strategy learners are supervised in every stage until the learners are capable of creating a piece of writing. It is essential to improve the independent writing skill of learners through scaffolding strategies. This study examines the differences in independent writing in secondary level with and without scaffolding techniques; and also the impressions that learners have regarding writing tasks with or without scaffolding methods to find out the problems, address them and improve the situation. This study follows action research design and qualitative study. The study has been conducted among five secondary level students of class VI in a Bangla medium school. The researcher selected instrumental case study, observations, analysis of students’ writings, semi structured interviews. The researcher conducted three classes which showed that the scaffolding techniques can enhance the learners’ independent skill. The qualitative thematic analysis of interview transcripts explored that learners cannot write independently because they have insufficient vocabulary, problems to understand the meaning of the topic, teachers’ reluctance of providing samples, limitations of time to complete the syllabus, teachers’ encouragement in memorisation. Research in this field is vital for Bangladesh, because the standard of education in the country depends on the students’ independent writing skill in English.