Questões de Concurso

During a writing activity in English, the teacher observes that more than half of the students struggle with the correct use of the Past Simple and Present Perfect tenses, especially in distinguishing between the two in isolated sentences — e.g., “They have seen that movie last week” instead of “They saw that movie last week” or “She worked here since 2020” instead of “She has worked here since 2020”. The teacher notices that the students have no difficulty identifying the two tenses in reading comprehension activities. This indicates a passive understanding of the structures, but a lack of practice and confidence in their active use. The students, in late adolescence (16-17 years old), are in Piaget’s formal operations stage, with the ability to abstract, to analyze critically, and to generalize rules, as long as they are presented clearly, so students have opportunities for practical application. Their engagement is significantly higher in activities that connect the content to real-world contexts, such as discussions about personal experiences or global issues. The teacher is then determined to find and implement a strategy to help her students.

Some authors deepen the understanding of scaffolding from the perspective of sociocultural learning theories, highlighting it as a form of dialogic and adaptive mediation that emerges through interaction between learners and more experienced interlocutors. Scaffolding is presented as an essential pedagogical tool that enables learners to perform linguistic tasks that are not yet within their autonomous reach, as long as they fall within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The support provided is responsive to the learner’s momentary needs and should be gradually withdrawn as the learner becomes more competent.

What distinguishes these authors’ approach is their view of scaffolding not as mere assisted instruction, but as a dynamic process of co-constructing meaning in socially situated contexts. They emphasize that in order to foster genuine linguistic development, teaching must go beyond the transmission of grammatical rules and actively create opportunities for authentic language use, where error and negotiation are integral to the learning process. Thus, scaffolding becomes a link between participation, interaction, and development, enabling learners to appropriate language as a cultural tool.

LANTOLF, J. P.; POEHNER, M. E.; THORNE, S. L. Sociocultural Theory and L2 Development. In: VANPATTEN, B.; KEATING, G.;

WULFF, S. (Eds.). Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction. New York: Routledge,2020 (adapted).

CORA CORALINA. Poemas dos becos de Goiás e estórias mais.

São Paulo: Global,2006.