ESL Teachers' Scaffolding Strategies to Teach Writing

In Malaysia, English as a second language (ESL) students vary widely in terms of language proficiency. Their performance in writing shows a great disparity. The good students are able to write excellently while the weak ones struggle to write. The aim of this study was to validate the scaffolding models and modules for teaching the writing skills particularly to weak learners of English. This research was conducted using a qualitative approach. It was employed throughout the whole study except for ascertaining the students’ performance in tests given to them for which a quantitative approach was used. The techniques for collecting data were document analysis, classroom observation, interviews and tests. Data from the lessons observed were triangulated with those obtained from the teachers’ lesson plans. The findings have shown positive and favourable effects of scaffolding on the teaching and learning of writing among weak ESL learners. The effectiveness of the model was seen in the strategies used by the teachers. The teachers were competent in teaching English language lessons as they had more than five years of teaching English to weak students.


Introduction
In Malaysia, English as a second language (ESL) students vary widely in terms of language proficiency. Their performance in writing shows a great disparity. The good students are able to write excellently while the weak ones struggle to write. In formal assessments, the products of the good students as well those of the weak ones are evaluated based on the same criteria. Obviously, the weak students are at a disadvantage. In most cases their failure to write compositions in English stems from their inability to master the language. Their range of vocabulary is very limited and hence they are restricted in expressing their ideas in English. In addition, their lack of knowledge regarding the use of grammar aggravates the situation. They can hardly put together words to form a grammatically correct sentence. Their sentence structures are greatly influenced by their first language.
At the moment the present standard of proficiency acquired by the students is still fairly low. The severity of the problem has been acknowledged and is the concern of many quarters -teachers, administrators, parents, entrepreneurs and politicians alike. An executor Director of the Malaysian Employers Federation lamented that it was increasingly difficult to hire fresh graduates who could communicate effectively in English. He commented that "their level of proficiency does not command the confidence of employers to hire them" [1]. The effects of the decrease in use of the English language in school and poor performance of students in the English Language paper have also resulted in teachers clamouring for the return of the compulsory pass in the English Language paper in the standardised SPM examination and suggesting bringing back English medium schools [2]. The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers have clamoured for a compulsory pass in the subject, English Language, by 2018. There have also been suggestions to reintroduce the use of English to teach Science and Mathematics in schools which was withdrawn in 2009. This programme was introduced in 1996 by the Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, at that time. It took effect in schools in 2003. He has also championed it back [2]. All these ideas indicate the urgency of the need to upgrade the level of use and proficiency in the language concerned. They also portray the awareness of the importance of English among educators, parents and students among other stakeholders. The importance of the English language in the world today is evidenced in the demand for it in both the private and public sector.
Writing is one of the language skills that are emphasized in the English Language Malaysian School Syllabus [3]. Most of the time, students work on their writing tasks individually. The students' inability to engage in continuous writing make them lose interest in their work. Thus, some students do not like to do it. It is generally accepted that writing is a difficult skill to master. This view has also been expressed by [4] who states that the most difficult task in writing is to produce a coherent and fluent extended piece of writing. This is particularly so when it comes to writing in a language which is different from one's first language. Hence, many learners of English as a second language, especially at secondary school level perform poorly in the language during examinations. For example, the results of the SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) examination English Paper for 2014 showed that 77.3% of the students passed compared to 80% in 2013 [5]. Part of the examination paper is based on writing. Students often display weaknesses in their written work. The weaknesses are seen not only in the structures they produce but also in the ideas expressed.
This study was prompted by results of an earlier study conducted by [6]. The researchers investigated the writing ability of Form Three students in a pivate Islamic school. The students were very weak at writing and had to be given sufficient guidance. These students had been taught the English Language in the primary school. At Form Three level, they would have been exposed to the language for at least eight years. However they still displayed their inability to acquire the language, both in the written as well as the spoken form. Their weakness in writing compositions in English ranged from incorrect grammatical structures used in sentences, to lack of vocabulary. An example is taken from a composition written by a student in the previous research conducted [6]. Pictures were provided to help students generate ideas. Some sentences produced by the students are as follows. a. In the everyday, my mother wake up in the morning. b. At 6 pm Shahirah go to home very-very tired. c. One day Puan Sharifah to go up from sleep the clock 5.30 a.m.
They clearly show poor syntactic structure, subject-verb agreement, and choice of linguistic items. The content of the compositions written reflected low level thinking skills such as knowledge and comprehension. Even then sufficient guidance had to be given to enable the students to write. The guidance was usually in the form of information that the students were required to use in the compositions.The aim was to help them develop ideas.
Graphic presentations alone did not enable them to write logical sentences. Key words had to be provided to guide them to write.
Development of ideas was usually very restricted. In most cases the key words given were simply joined to form sentences. The students depended too much on the linguistic guidance given. Students very seldom expanded the ideas or added in ideas of their own. They lacked the relevant cohesive devices to enhance their written expressions. They constructed simple sentences more than complex ones. Compound sentences were sometimes used but the connectors were simple ones such as 'and' and 'but'. Grammatical errors abound. Most of the students showed incomplete knowledge of the tenses, subject agreement, use of prepositions, use of articles and use of prepositions. Their inability to master the language could have been contributed by their lack of exposure to the language outside school hours. They seldom used the language outside the classroom. Even when they were having English Language lessons, the students used their own language, that is, Malay to communicate among themselves and also with the teacher. The time allocated for the teaching of the English language was inadequate to allow optimal opportunity for students to practice using the language. They were given homework which they had to complete on their own. They had to attempt the tasks given without any guidance from the teacher. Therefore, to facilitate their effort at writing compositions in English, it was considered appropriate to provide guidance which the students could use by themselves.
It was discovered that the students required a lot of guidance or scaffolding in order to write compositions in English. It was believed that the scaffolding could be given in different forms to facilitate teaching and learning of the writing skill. Scaffolding in both the modules and model of teaching was designed to assist the teacher as well as the students. In view of the fact that many students fared poorly in the English Language, it was felt that the use of materials which provided scaffolding for writing compositions would help students improve their performance in the English Language paper.
The severity of the problems of writing faced by learners of English as a second language has been frequently discussed and researched both locally as well as internationally. However, problems experienced by Malaysian ESL learners should be given more attention. These problems are experienced not only by students at school level but also by those at tertiary level.

Writing Process Model
This model was initiated by [7]. It outlines the steps taken to produce a piece of writing. The basic writing process consists of five steps namely: prewriting, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. At the prewritng stage, students brainstorm to gather ideas based on a topic given. At this stage students are not able to work independently.

ESL Teachers' Scaffolding Strategies to Teach Writing
The teacher may guide them using graphic organisers such as mind maps. Then students organise their ideas by making an outline to visualise the topic and the paragraphs to be written. The next stage is drafting. Students write the composition based on the outline created. Editing is done when the draft is completed. At this point students check the language used and errors are corrected. When this process is completed, students rewrite the draft which they finally share with others. This model of writing does not necessarily aim at helping second language learners of English to write. It is also useful for first language students. The writing process model presents a lengthy and tedious process for students whose proficiency in the second language is very low. Their inability to express their ideas in English hampers their attempt at writing. Their propensity to make errors slows down the teacher's effort to assist them to write.
The writing process approach to writing is considered ineffective for weak learners as it requires brainstorming to be conducted at the initial stage of writing. Students are required to develop ideas to incorporate in their writing. This activity is too challenging for weak learners of English who lack the required working vocabulary to express their ideas. Hence it will be time-consuming. Working within 40 to 80 minutes in one lesson, it is difficult for the teacher to go through the whole process of the writing process approach with the students. In view of the problems faced by these students and other students with similar problems, this study was implemented. It was felt that these students need a lot of help to enable them to improve their language proficiency. This previous study and the studies conducted by the other researchers augur well for the development of a teaching model and modules to help the ESL learners and the teachers teaching them.

Scaffolding Model
[8] define scaffolding as a process in which students are given support until they are able to apply independently the skills and strategies they have learned. The term 'scaffolding' also refers to 'providing contextual supports for meaning through the use of simplified language, teacher modelling, visuals and graphics, cooperative learning and hands-on learning' [9]. The support is normally provided by the teacher. The scaffold is gradually removed when the students become more proficient [10].
There are several concepts of scaffolding in teaching and learning. The term "scaffolding" or learning support was originally coined by [11] to describe the effective intervention by a peer, adult or competent person to help another person learn. The scaffolding is provided so that the learner gains new skills, concepts and knowledge. The scaffolding is provided to support learning, and for this to happen the task, teacher and environment must provide certain conditions for learning [12].
[13] defines scaffolding as "the cognitive support given to a novice to reduce the cognitive load of the task, while [14]defines it as a "situation where a knowledgeable participant can create supportive conditions in which the novice can participate and extend his or her current skills and knowledge to higher levels of competence" (p. 40). [15] conceptualises scaffolding as "providing support for students in their language and then gradually diminishing the support as students become more independent" (p. 530).
[16] define scaffolding as "using the supportive templates by which guidance is offered to the students through a semiotically mediated situation in order to achieve higher level competence and regulation" (p. 44). The term 'mediation' as defined by [16] as "the indirect activity which is not limited to assistance by other human beings but may come in the form of socially constructed semiotic artifacts, such as books, maps and diagrams" (p. 45). "The template provides the generic structure and part of the rhetorical content in order to direct the learner's effort to the details of the writing task, which are within his or her capabilities. For example, a template for a letter of invitation offers the learner the basic structure and the frame of the task so that he or she can focus on the details of the invitation". (p. 45) [17] refers scaffolding to "an act of teaching that supports the immediate construction of knowledge by the learner and provides the basis for the future independent learning of individual" (p. 131). The scaffolding process is done by the the teacher and is removed at a later stage, when the learner is able to work on his own independently.

Design of the Scaffolding Modules
The scaffolding modules consisted of tasks the students had to complete. The scaffolding was provided in the form of levels of assistance rendered to the students. The tasks were categorised into three levels, namely, controlled writing, guided writing, and almost free writing.
Controlled writing consisted of tasks which were simple enough to foster students' conceptual understanding. The tasks were constructed based on the students' prior knowledge and cultural background. Much of the information regarding the students' performance and their needs was obtained from the teachers who were teaching them English Language. The linguistic elements were very elementary though based on the items provided in the syllabus. The sentence structures were rather simple. Complex sentences were kept to a minimum. The structure of writing which was presented for students to complete dealt with content, organisation and language. Content was presented in the form of pictures and key words. The organisation was structured in the form of outlines of paragraphs and language which was aided by clues given in the form of tenses and sentence structures. The aim of the controlled writing tasks was to enable students to write and to believe that they were able to write in English. Hence the Universal Journal of Educational Research 8(7): 3064-3076, 2020 3067 confidence in themselves could be developed. The tasks comprised those which required students to fill in blanks with choice of given words, reorganise paragraphs, rearrange words in sentences and selecting sentences from those given to form a paragraph. Very little writing was done by the students on their own.
The guided writing module consisted of tasks that were less challenging compared with those on controlled writing. A little bit of the control was reduced to encourage the students to strive on their own. The types of tasks include filling in the blanks using clues in the texts, sentence completion, sentence construction with given words, paragraph writing with parts of sentences given, paragraph writing based on answers to questions. The tasks were more challenging to the students compared with those in controlled writing. The students were allowed to start on this module after they have shown progress in the controlled writing module.
The almost free writing module was attempted after the students had completed most of the tasks in the guided writing module successfully. Generally, the tasks in this module require the students to use their own words and ideas to write compositions. Some forms of guidance were given. They include key words given to construct sentences, pictures which require students to describe their story, prediction of the ending of a story, descriptions of scenes with questions as guidance, writing of opinions with some points given.

Scaffolding Teaching
Scaffolding teaching or instruction is "the systematic sequencing of prompted content, materials, tasks, and teacher and peer support to optimize learning" [18]. The claim that scaffolding is an effective techniques of teaching writing is supported by researchers such as [19], [20], [21] and [22].
In order to implement scaffolding instruction effectively, [23] puts forward eight characteristics which teachers can adhere to. They are: 1. Provide clear instruction and reduce students' confusion. The teacher provides instruction for how students must complete tasks. 2. Clarify purpose. The teacher explains the purpose of the lesson and why this is important. 3. Keep students on task. Students are aware of the direction in which the lesson is heading. 4. Offer assessment to clarify expectations. The teacher clarifies what students are expected to do of the activity using examples and rubrics. 5. Point students to worthy sources. The teacher provides resources for research and learning to decrease confusion, frustration and wasted time. 6. Reduce uncertainty, surprise and disappointment. The activity or lesson is evaluated before implementation to reduce problems and maximie learning potential.
7. Deliver efficiency. Little time is wasted in implementing the lesson and learning goals are achieved. 8. Create momentum. The goal of the scaffolding is to inspire learners to learn more and increase their knowledge and understanding.
The instructional strategies presented above were examined and compared against what the teachers in this study did in implementing the modules. Their instructional strategies were analysed to construct the model used by them. In this study, the form of scaffolding that was employed during the course of instruction depended on the teacher and the module. The teacher knew the capabilities of her students and hence was able to engage the students in the tasks based on the students' level of proficiency.

The Importance of Scaffolding in Language Learning
Teachers need to provide opportunities for students to constantly learn new things. Some of the items taught may be highly complex and will require a lot of assistance from the teacher. Teachers need to be aware of their students' level of proficiency and should provide scaffolding that is appropriate.
The ESL students, particularly those whose language proficiency is low, are dependent on scaffolding. These students will greatly benefit from scaffolding that provides substantial visual aids. When these students see an image of what the teacher is talking about or the key words that the teacher is explaining, they will lower their affective filter as the input becomes comprehensible to them.
[24] investigated the effect of scaffolding on guided writing essays on Year Six primary school students. The researcher conducted a quasi experiment on two groups which were the experimental group and the control group. The experimental group was given the treatment which included modelling, brainstorming, conceptualisation and schema building.
[25] investigated content retention of learners' writing. The subjects were 40 female students within the age range of 12 to 15 studying in a Language Institute in Iran. They were assigned as experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using the scaffolding technique. After an oral summarization of a story, the students were given pictures that were scrambled. Students worked in pairs to sequence the event in the story, then to describe them and then write what they could remember from the story. Then a task which required the students to match incomplete sentences and order them based on the story and then write out the whole story. The students were helped by the teacher from the beginning until the scaffolding was gradually removed when they showed progress. The control group followed instructions from a book and the students were not helped by the teacher nor given accompanying tasks to do. The results of the post test showed that the experimental group outperformed the 3068 ESL Teachers' Scaffolding Strategies to Teach Writing control group in the writings and the students remembered more details from the story.
[26] administered a questionnaire on 112 first-year undergraduates from four English communication classes in a university in Taiwan. The questionnaire contained items which were specific to scaffolding in the English Language classroom. The items dealt with the teacher's scaffolding effort at teaching English as a second language. The results revealed that most of the students admitted that the teacher's encouragement for them to take responsibility for their own learning was beneficial. Majority of the students agreed that the teacher provided the content and progress of the students' learning through the use of scaffolding and prepared lesson plans. The students' responses towards scaffolding were on the whole favourable. They considered their teacher's scaffolding beneficial in helping them improve their spoken English. Most of them agreed that the teacher provided tips on how to improve their English language proficiency and how to correct themselves. It was concluded that scaffolding 'provides students with the right balance of independence and support they needed to improve their English speaking performance' (p. 241).
This study presents a breakthrough in the teaching and learning of writing compositions in English to weak learners. The scaffolding principles were used to develop modules from which the teaching model materialised. The scaffolding model incorporated teaching writing initially at the controlled level for which an appropriate module was used. When this level had been undergone by learners, the guided writing model and module were used. The final stage was the almost free level at which the appropriate model and modules were used. The modules provided ample guidance for both the teachers and students. It is a new idea as all other research studies on writing by ESL learners in Malaysia focus on the structural aspects, linguistic problems, writing strategies, and views of teachers and students. They lack the strategies on how to overcome the problems faced by instructors and students in the teaching and learning of writing in English.
A study conducted by [38] on a group of first year undergraduates to find their views on what constitutes effective teaching showed that they preferred teachers who could provide and create a safe learning environment. Findings also revealed that successful and effective teaching need great support from the teachers who are able to scaffold learning to bring about effective results. This is also supported by [39] on the importance of interaction between teachers and students to able to engage in linguistically provided if the teachers are able to scaffold and guide the students towards the tasks assigned.
[40] conducted a study on the effects of scaffolding strategies to facilitate language proficiency. Their findings revealed that the scaffolding strategies used as a means to improve students' writing assisted the EFL learners to gain news ideas and knowledge.
[41] agreed that scaffolding has some importance to modulate students' writing. Their study reported on the use of feedback that facilitated undergraduates' writing ability. Peer feedback and scaffolding extended to the students would assist the students to complete a task or that which can facilitate their learning of something new. Another study conducted by [42] showed that scaffolding can promote thinking among students. Teachers' teaching and questioning strategies in the ESL classroom can facilitate and support the immediate construction of knowledge by the students. In other words, the scaffolding process is done by the teacher and is removed at a later stage, when the learner is able to work on his own independently. Teachers play a dominant role in English language teaching and they are accountable to identify student needs and check students' progress based on those abilities [48]; [47]. Scaffolding teaching by the teachers shows their effort to develop materials for instructions, utilising appropriate assessment techniques, and ability to create environment for peer support to optimise students' learning [43]. This is further supported by [44] and [45] on the guidelines that teachers can employ when carrying out the scaffolding activities as to create environment where students are challenged to take the risks and promote responsibility for independent learning. [46] and [45] divulged that language planning is crucial in the process of transferring the high quality of instruction to educators. The focus on curriculum goals need proper planning in order for the students to develop appropriate tasks for writing.
A previous study [6] made by the research team of the current study had revealed the usefulness of the scaffolding model and modules for the teaching and learning of writing. It was a small study in a private Islamic religious school. It was felt that the approach used could also benefit students in the regular national schools, particularly where the students' writing ability was poor. It provided the impetus to explore further the use of scaffolding to help weak learners of English writing. Therefore, the current study was planned with certain objectives in mind.
The objectives of the study were: 1) To validate the effectiveness of the Scaffolding Model and modules for teaching writing to weak ESL learners in national schools in Malaysia. 2) To assess the students' performance using the model and modules developed.

Methodology
This research was conducted using a qualitative approach. It was employed throughout the whole study except for ascertaining the students' performance in tests given to them for which a quantitative approach was used. Qualitative studies are carried out to understand human experiences [27]. Researchers can use qualitative study as an approach to study and explore a phenomenon in selected contexts based on diverse data sources [28]. In a qualitative research, the researcher studies behaviour as it happens in a natural setting such as classroom, playground, in an organisation or community [29]. It takes place in a setting as they are found because the researcher needs to actually go to the setting themselves to observe behaviour. In this study, the researchers observed the teachers' use of the scaffolding models and modules for teaching the writing skills particularly to weak learners of English.
The participants in this study were two teachers teaching English Language to Form Two students selected based on purposive sampling. The teachers and the students were from two separate schools.
Purposive sampling is a type of sampling method where a particular settings, individuals or events are selected intentionally in order to provide essential information that cannot be acquired by other ways [30]. Two teachers were engaged in this study. They happened to be female teachers assigned to teach English Language in each school. They were Malay teachers who had been teaching the subject for a few years. The teachers were approached to discuss the objective of the research. They were told about the observations that were required to enable the researchers to collect data regarding the use of the modules. They were shown the modules which were meant to be implemented in their classes. They expressed positive acceptance of the modules and welcomed such materials which could help their students. They were made aware of the observations that would be carried out in their classrooms.
The teachers admitted that their students' English language proficiency was poor. They willingly agreed to use the modules shown to them as the schools lacked the proper resources which the teacher could use to teach writing to weak students.
The tasks in the modules were explained to them. The modules were, Controlled Writing, Guided Writing and Almost Free Writing. Five units in each module were identified for the teachers to us in the classroom. Two lessons would be observed when the teachers taught each module. The teachers were given these modules a week before they used them. This was to enable them to go through the tasks and be familiar with them before they conducted their lessons. The teachers were also asked to make their students do the tasks which were not conducted in the classroom on their own at home.

Data Collection
Data for the research were obtained using composition tests, teachers' lesson plans, classroom observations, modules and interviews. Classroom observation is a crucial data collection method for qualitative enquiry [27]. Data obtained were analysed thematically. The researchers selected the role of observer-as-participant [31] to obtain some insights on ESL teachers' use of the scaffolding models and modules for teaching the writing skills particularly to weak learners of English.
Altogether, there were four composition tasks which students had to complete. Four genres of writing were employed. They were narrative writing, descriptive writing, expository writing and argumentative writing. These genres were selected based on the types of writing described in the Form Two syllabus and what the students had been doing in school. A pre-test was administered in each school before the research was conducted to obtain information pertaining to the students' quality of writing. A post-test was administered after the students were exposed to the scaffolding models and modules for teaching the writing skills.
Observations were made over a period of fourteen lessons in two schools. Non-participant observation was conducted during the teaching sessions. The objective was to find information regarding their teaching procedures that would enable the researchers to see how the teachers used the tasks in the modules and scaffolded their teaching of writing in the classroom. The modules consisted of three types of writing namely controlled writing, guided writing and almost free writing. Each module dealt with four types of writing comprising narrative writing, descriptive writing, expository writing and argumentative writing. The teachers were also interviewed after all the lessons were implemented and data from the observations had been collected. The time coincided with the end of the final school term. The teachers were asked to comment on the modules. The aim was to find out the extent the modules assisted them in their teaching and the extent the students benefited from the tasks given. [31] the goal of an interview is to find out how people perceive an occurrence or object. In this study, semi-structured interviews which are also known as focused interviews were conducted both with the two teachers to gather data on the use of the scaffolding models and modules for teaching the writing skills particularly to weak learners of English.

Findings
The scaffolding model for teaching was subsumed in the tasks provided in the modules. The tasks had been organised following the procedures obtained in the previous research conducted by the researchers [6]. The procedures were that the controlled writing tasks had to be done before the guided writing tasks. Students would have mastered most of the writing skills in the controlled writing module before proceeding to the guided writing tasks. The almost free writing tasks could only be conducted when the students had gone through the guided writing tasks and acquired most of the skills in that module. However, the teachers were given the freedom to use their own initiative and ingenuity to execute the activities or tasks based on the needs of their students. Each task could be implemented in various ways. Hence the same task could be conducted in different ways by each of the teachers. The answer to this question therefore lies in the data obtained from observations made in the classroom and the teachers' lesson plans. The observations were focused on the instructional strategies used and the learning strategies of the students. The lesson plans included the lessons which were not observed but conducted by the teachers. These lesson plans pertained to tasks in the three modules used. There were five lessons from each of the modules conducted by each teacher.
Data from the lessons observed were triangulated with those obtained from the teachers' lesson plans. They showed similar strategies used. This showed that the teachers were consistent in their teaching strategies. The model employed was effective in the sense that the teachers managed to get the students to complete the tasks given. A sample task from each module is attached. The effectiveness of the scaffolding model was also seen in the consistency of use of certain strategies by the teachers. These strategies were common between the two teachers.
A total of 15 lesson plans from each school were analysed to look at the teaching of writing based on the modules provided. The lesson plans contained the types of activities and teaching strategies that the teacher used in the class.

Instructional Strategies
The list below shows the overall scaffolding strategies that were used by the participating teachers during the six observations with each one of them. The strategies varied in each lesson. They depended on the type of task to be completed. Some tasks required students to read texts comprising whole paragraphs, some were just a sentence or two. Certain tasks were accompanied by pictures while others had only texts. The strategies are displayed below. However, they do not represent any particular order in any lesson. They have been compiled and summarised from all the lessons the teachers carried out based on the research modules. Categories were assigned to the strategies identified.

Establishing Direction of the Lesson [32]
This strategy was used by the teachers in different ways. Teacher A used it at the beginning of each of her lessons. She informed the students of the objectives of each lesson so that the students knew what they had to do in that lesson. To ensure that students were aware of what they had to do, the teacher wrote the objectives on the board. The following extract provides an example of objectives of one controlled writing lesson.

Extract 1
To enable students to: 1. Reorganise sentences to form a paragraph. 2. Write a story based on the sentences given.
Teacher B did not inform students of the objectives of the lessons. Instead, she directed the students' attention to the task in each lesson by telling them to read the instructions and complete the task or ask leading questions that dealt with the topic of the lesson.
Where? Which night market did you go to? Students: Tanjong Malim.

Explaining and Clarifying [9]
One of the scaffolding strategies that the teachers used was explaining. The teachers often simplified the language that they used. The teachers used words that students knew to explain the tasks to be done. There were also words in the text the students had to work on which students had difficulty in understanding.
Clarification of the meanings of words was expressed in simple language and at times translation in Malay. Sometimes the teachers had to resort to translation to make students understand the tasks. On one occasion, one of the teachers asked her students the meaning of "pedestrian". A student responded with "Jejantas" and the teacher corrected her by providing a term in Malay "Pejalan kaki". Translation was kept to a minimum, most of the time it was confined to words and phrases. At other times when a student provided an answer in Malay, the teacher would give the English equivalent.

Extract 3
Teacher: What's the meaning of merit? Student: Baik Teacher: Advantage.

Questioning [33]
The teachers used questions for various purposes in the study. There were questions from the tasks which required answers from the students. The teachers directed the students to answers which would enable them to write. In some cases, the questions were explained in clearer terms for students to understand. The answers were first elicited verbally to ensure that all the students heard them and hence would be able to write after that.
Questions were also used to check students' understanding for example asking them whether they could still remember when and how to use sequence connectors. Questions were also used to check students' prior knowledge, for example asking students their knowledge and experience about "The Night market".
Questions were also used to test students' higher order thinking skills. In one lesson, teacher A asked students the question "Why did the taxi driver return the bag?".
Students had to infer from the series of pictures which told a story to obtain the answer. It was an open-ended evaluation question which drew a variety of answers from the students such as, "he was a good man", "he was honest", "he was kind". When asked for a title of the story, some students answered "Unforgettable experience". This answered indicated that the students were able to synthesise the ideas.

Feedback for Students to Monitor Progress [34]
The students' lack of language proficiency required the teachers to constantly monitor the students' work. In one lesson (Controlled Writing: Activity 4-The story of Mrs. Goh), teacher B instructed students to work in groups and each student in a group had to write one sentence. The teacher moved around the class to check the sentences developed by each group and to provide feedback for them. The teacher then told them to combine all the sentences into a paragraph. In one lesson (Controlled Writing: Activity 6-The Night market), teacher A told students to answer the comprehension questions after going through the text with them. She then monitored the students' performance. When the work was completed the teacher checked the answers orally in class so that all the students could check their work. The teacher's feedback enabled the students to monitor their own progress. Such a strategy is suggested by  in their guidelines for scaffolding lessons.
[32] applied modelling to every part of the writing process. She used it "so that students could see and hear about how to accomplish the task at hand". In this study the teachers employed this strategy at certain parts of the lesson and also when it was required by the students. It was used at the beginning of the lesson, for example, in the lesson on "process and procedures" (Guided Writing: Activity 15) teacher A modelled sentences which required the use of sentence connectors. The teacher wrote the sentences on the board.

Extract 4
Teacher A: Firstly, we break two eggs into a bowl.
Secondly or next, we….
Students were encouraged to continue using the key words given below each picture. The teacher wrote the answers on the board and corrected mistakes the students made. This form of modelling is comparable to the sharing strategy proposed by [32]. In her study, Read wrote the text together with the students. In this study, the teacher shared the ideas and linguistic structures with the students as she wrote the answers on the board. This strategy reduced the students' chances of making mistakes in their compositions.

Learning Cooperatively [9] [33]
A regularly used strategy found in the classrooms of both teachers was cooperative learning in which the teachers put their students in pairs or small groups to complete a task. In her lesson plans, it was found that teacher A got the students to work in groups or in pairs to discuss the topic that was being taught that day. For instance, in Activity 4 (Controlled Writing) the teacher asked the students to discuss in small groups how to rearrange three paragraphs to form a complete essay. For Activity 14 (Controlled Writing) the students were asked to discuss in groups how to write a composition. This activity was a continuation of a previous activity for which students were required to use the notes in Activity 13 (Controlled Writing) and change the form of the verb and rewrite the notes to form a complete essay using suitable linkers. The group discussion indirectly helped the weaker students to complete the task given. Similarly, the teacher continued adopting the same teaching strategy in teaching the second and third modules. Activity 6 in the guided writing module required students to write a composition about the Pasar Malam (night market). Notes were provided in the module for four paragraphs that the students had to write. These paragraphs were the introduction paragraph, supporting paragraph 1, supporting paragraph 2, and the concluding paragraph. The teacher assigned each group to write a paragraph. The students had to work collaboratively with each other to produce a paragraph. Getting the students to cooperate with each other would reduce the anxiety level among the students. Writing anxiety has been shown to have a negative relationship with writing performance of ESL learners [35].
In one lesson (Activity 4-reorganising sentences and paragraphs) teacher A made one student from each group to write the completed work on the board. Three paragraphs, each of which was presented by a student from a different group, were completed. The teacher and the rest of the students checked the work presented. The teacher corrected the mistakes of the work on the board.
Teacher B implemented co-operative learning strategies too. In the lesson on "The Night Market" or "Pasar Malam", she assigned students to work in groups. One group worked on the introduction, the second group worked on the first paragraph, the third group worked on the second paragraph, and the last group worked on the conclusion. Each group had to prepare at least five sentences for each paragraph. When the students had completed the task, she made a student from each group to write their product on the board. The following extract shows what each group produced. The teacher checked the students work and after correcting their mistakes she told them to copy the composition in their books.

Teaching Vocabulary Items [24]
The students' command of vocabulary was generally poor. In almost every lesson student encountered unfamiliar words which they had to use. To help them understand the meanings of these words, teacher A told them to use the dictionary which was a bilingual English-Malay dictionary. The teacher made an effort to supply students with copies of the dictionary to be used in class. She collected them back at the end of the lesson. A problem that was faced when the students used the bilingual dictionary was that some of the meanings of the lexical items could not be found. For example, they students were able to find the meaning of 'close' but not 'close to'. Hence the teacher had to explain the meaning of the term. The teacher encouraged the students to use the dictionary when they were writing compositions.
In her lesson plans, teacher A included the use of the dictionary in one activity only which was Activity 7 (Controlled Writing). However, the students used the dictionary in all the lessons to assist them to find suitable words to use in their writing.
Teacher B also resorted to the dictionary to help the students. On one occasion she directly told a student to use the dictionary.

Extract 6
Teacher: What is the meaning of the word 'jumbled'? Students: (Quiet). Teacher: Take out your dictionary. Look for the meaning.
Teacher: What are jumbled here? Student: The sentences, ayat ke teacher. Teacher: Yes.

Using Verbal Cues to Prompt Student Answers [24]
In one lesson Teacher B guided a student to find the answer to a question asked by the student.
Through her questioning strategy, she managed to get the student to know the answer but the word given by the student was in Malay.

Facilitating Student Engagement and Participation [24]
Both teachers motivated students to write by suggesting tasks that they could do. The students were made to get involved in the tasks. The students' participation included hands-on activity and presentation.
For the hands-on activity, most of the time, the teachers told students to write their compositions in the classroom. At other times, the students were also told to do it at home. The students not only learned about the strategies of writing different types of essays but also how to brainstorm and write a complete composition based on the tasks given.
The presentation strategy allowed the students to present their compositions in front of the class confidently. Teacher A used this strategy frequently especially in the teaching of the second module, Guided Writing.
The effectiveness of the model and modules for writing was also evident from the interviews with the students and teachers.

Students' Performance after Using the Model and Modules Developed
Based on the guidance and encouragement from the teachers some of the students showed excellent progress. They were able to expand their knowledge of vocabulary, improve their linguistic structures, and acquire organisational skills. The students were able to complete most of the activities in each of the modules considering the limited time they had as it was almost towards the end of the term. There were students who constantly followed the lessons while the attendance of others were fairly irregular. All the students were present during the pre-test but the post test showed the attendance of very few students in both schools. Nevertheless, the results are impressive.

Test Results
The test results were obtained from the two sets of tests administered in the two schools. It was explained earlier in Chapter 2 that the test tasks were different between schools. In school A the tasks were an expository composition and an argumentative composition, while in school B the tasks were a narrative composition and a descriptive composition. All the compositions were marked over 30 marks. This was in line with the system used in the school and the national examination.
On the whole the mean scores for the two schools show an increase in the post test. The mean score increased from 16.8 to 19.9 for composition 1 and from 7.4 to 13.5 for composition 2 in school A. In school B there was an increase from 05 to 12.8 for composition 1 and from 3.2 to 13.5 for composition 2. The results show that there was an improvement in the students' performance at the end of the research investigation. In school A the expository composition seems to be fairly easy for the students. The students were given key words. They had to develop ideas based on these words to write a composition on how to make a cup of tea. All except two students passed the pre-test. However, most of them showed improvement on the post test. Four students maintained the scores they received during the pre-test. For composition 2 which was argumentative in nature, all the students scored below 50 % of the total marks (30 marks). However, in the post test most of them were able to improve. Five of the students scored more than 50% of the total marks. The others improved their performance although the scores were still low. Although the marks were low, for instance in the case of Muhammad Dineal, the improvement is seen in the increase in marks received, that is from 03 to 05. Table 1 shows the scores of the pre-tests and post tests for School A.
There were altogether 20 students in the class in school A. However, 19 students wrote the compositions for the pre-test. One student was absent. Only 10 students attended class when the post test was administered. Consequently, only the results of students who did both tests were analysed. In School B, the test tasks given were a narrative and a description of a profession. Only 6 students did both the pre-test and the post-test although there were altogether 26 students in the class. The narrative task required the students to write about a visit to a paper factory. Key words and phrases were given and they were given in a sequence that students could use to compose the story. The pre-test scores show only two students scoring below the passing mark, that is, 5 out of 30 marks. The other 4 students did not even attempt this task although they did the second task. However, in the post test, these four students showed better results. They were able to obtain some marks for composition 1 although these marks are still below the passing mark. The students' performance in composition 2 shows better results. All of them received marks which were higher compared to the marks received during the pre-test. However, only one student obtained 20 out of 30 marks. In general, the scores of the pre-tests and post tests showed that there was improvement in the students' writing performance. The scores for the students increased or remained constant. Four out of the six students in School B were not able to write Composition 1 during the pre-test but all of them were able to write the same composition in the post test. This proved that the use of the modules had enabled students to write confidently. The model and modules developed were intended to scaffolding teaching and learning of composition writing to weak learners of English. The modules were developed based on levels of progression in writing, that is, from an easy to a more difficult level. The modules were constructed based on three levels namely, controlled writing, guided writing and almost free writing. The model for teaching was influenced by the modules used. The teachers implemented the modules according to the needs of their students who were weak at writing compositions in English. The results have shown favourable effects of the scaffolding model and modules on the students' performance. The results are based on the data collected.
Data from classroom observations, teachers' lesson plans, and views of teachers and students were triangulated to ensure there was validity in the results. The results obtained from the different sources appeared to complement one another. The model of teaching was in line with the contents in the modules. The results of the study are comparable with those of other studies done on scaffolding of teaching writing which indicated positive results [25]; [24]; [36]; [37].

Conclusions
The findings have shown positive and favourable effects of scaffolding on the teaching and learning of writing among weak ESL learners. The effectiveness of the model was seen in the strategies used by the teachers. The teachers were competent in teaching English language lessons as they had more than five years of teaching English to weak students. The modules would not have effectuated any result without their implementation. The teachers were instrumental in producing the desired results. Various strategies were used by the teachers to teach writing of compositions to weak learners using the modules developed. The strategies have been discovered or used by various researchers and scholars from various disciplines. Different researchers and scholars drew up different sets of strategies. The teaching strategies that had been observed in this study seemed to have originated from the different sets of strategies suggested. Each strategy is identified as follows with reference to the researcher who had discovered it or used it earlier. [20] 9. Facilitating student engagement and participation [20] The two ESL teachers had executed the scaffolding strategies based on the needs of their students and the stipulations of the English Language syllabus for Form Two. These strategies appeared in both of the teachers' instructional processes. Since both of them taught weak learners of English, these strategies can be considered appropriate for teaching students who are very weak at writing compositions in English. The order of the strategies was, however, not similar between the two teachers nor were they similar in all the lessons. They represent the total sum of the teaching strategies used for scaffolding in all the lessons taught by the two teachers. Research has shown that strategies used by teachers for scaffolding learning vary from teacher to teacher. The strategies also depend on the level of the students' ability and needs. Some students need more scaffolding than others. Hence, the levels of scaffolding have to be determined prior to teaching. There may be more than three levels that are required. It also depends on the teaching environment. In a large class of students with diverse abilities, the teacher may have to expand the levels of scaffolding to more than three to cater to their needs.