English Language Development

Figure 2.17. Four Zones of Teaching and Learning

High Challenge

Low Support

Frustration/

Anxiety Zone

Learning

Engagement

Zone (ZPD)

High Support

Boredom Zone Comfort Zone

Low Challenge

Source

Gibbons, Pauline. 2009. English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Adapted from

Mariani, Luciano. 1997. “Teacher Support and Teacher Challenge in Promoting Learner Autonomy.”

Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL-Italy. XXIII (2).

Planned scaffolding^3 is what teachers prepare and do in advance of teaching in order to promote
access to academic and linguistic development. Examples of planned scaffolding include, but are not
limited to, the following:

• Taking into account what students already know, including primary language and culture, and
  relating it to what they are to learn


• Selecting and sequencing tasks, such as providing adequate levels of modeling and explaining,
  and ensuring students have opportunities to apply learning (e.g., guided practice)


• Frequently checking for understanding during instruction, as well as thinking ahead about how
  to gauge progress throughout the year


• Choosing texts carefully for specific purposes (e.g., to motivate, to build content knowledge, to
  expose students to particular language)


• Providing a variety of opportunities for collaborative group work in which all students have an
  equitable chance to participate


• Constructing good questions that are worth discussing and that promote critical thinking and
  extended discourse


• Using a range of information systems, such as graphic organizers, diagrams, photographs,
  videos, or other multimedia to enhance access to content

3 There are many ways to categorize scaffolding. The terms used here are adapted from Hammond and Gibbons (2005)

who refer to “designed-in” and “interactional” scaffolding. Designed-in (or planned) scaffolding refers to the support teachers

consciously plan in advance. Interactional scaffolding refers to the support teachers provide continuously through dialogue

during instruction or other interaction.

100 | Chapter 2 Essential Considerations