【正文】 and without assistance from a teacher or a more capable peer. On one end of the range is the student’s ability level without assistance. On the other end of the range is the student’s ability level with assistance. So as a teacher, he/she should try his/her best to stimulate the students’ potential development, or we can say it’s the teacher’s duty to do so and help the students to make full use of their potentialities. But how can a teacher do to prompt the students’ potential development? What techniques can be used to ensure the transformation of assisted performance into independent performance? That’s what we are going to discuss next—scaffolding theory. Scaffolding TheoryBefore we discuss the Relationship between scaffolding and ZPD, let’s acquaint ourselves with the definition of scaffolding. The term ‘scaffolding’ es from the works of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976), which is used to describe the way the adult or more capable peer guides the learner through the Zone of Proximal Development. This will often involve joint problem solving, with the adultpeer gradually withdrawing support as the learner’s mastery of a given task increases. Originally a scaffold is a nomenclature in architecture. It’s a temporary framework that supports a building during construction. When the structure is firm enough to stand on its own, the scaffold will be removed. In an educational sense, scaffolding, in the form of coaching or modeling, supports students as they develop new skills or learn new concepts. When the student achieves petence, the support is removed. The student continues to develop the skills or knowledge on his or her own. So what kind of scaffolding will decide how student will develop.Vygotsky identifies four phases of instructional scaffolding. The first phase is modeling, with verbal mentary. The second phase is student imitation of the skill they’ve seen modeled by their instructor, including the mentary. During this phase, the instructor must constantly assess student understandings and offer frequent assistance and feedback. The third phase is the period when the instructor begins to remove her scaffolding. She offers progressively less assistance and feedback to her students as they begin to master new content and/or process. In phase Four, the students have achieved an expert level of mastery. They can perform the new task without any help from their instructor.The term ‘scaffolding’ was developed as a metaphor to describe the type of assistance offered by a teacher or more knowledgeable peer to support learning. In the process of scaffolding, the teacher helps the student master a task or concept that the student is initially unable to grasp independently. Of great importance is allowing the student to plete as much of the task as possible without any assistance. The teacher only attempts to help the student with tasks that are just beyond his current capability. Student’s errors are expected, but with teacher feedback and prompting, the student is able to achieve the task or goal. When the student takes responsibility for or masters the task, the teacher begins the process of “fading”, or the gradual removal of the scaffolding, which allows the student to work independently. Now let’s look at another explanation of scaffolding. “Scaffolding”, Winnips explained to Education World, “focuses on active learning and student choice. The technique works especially well with technologybased learning, in which students need to be more selfreliant. Scaffolding allows them to work selfreliantly while receiving adequate support.” (Net. 1) This is the final goal of instruction: teaching for not teaching. Instructional scaffolding is a teaching strategy that was cleverly named for the practical resemblance it bears to the physical scaffolds used on construction sites. The strategy consists of teaching new skills by engaging students cooperatively in tasks that would be too difficult for them to plete on their own. The instructor initially provides extensive instructional support, or scaffolding, to continually assist the students in building their understanding of new content and process. Once the students internalize the content and/or process, they assume full responsibility for controlling the progress of a given task. The temporary scaffolding provided by the instructor is removed to reveal the impressive permanent structure of student understanding. The purposes of scaffolds are making the task accessible, supporting the development of expertise (explicit/intrinsic), providing information and advice, encouraging reflection, selfevaluation, and selfregulation, helping students to measure the progress and understanding, and helping students to make decision, explore, and to be ‘constructive’. Relationship between Scaffolding and ZPDThe ZPD characteristic of transfer of responsibility for the task to the student is as the major goal of scaffolding in teaching. In order to qualify as scaffolding, a teaching and learning event should enable the students to carry out the task which they would not have been able to manage on their own, be intended to bring the students to a state of petence which will enable them eventually to plete such a task on their own, and be followed by evidence of the students having achieved some greater level of independent petence as a result of the scaffolding experience (Wells, 1999: 221). The emphasis of the definition is on the cooperation between the teacher and the students in constructing knowledge and skill in the former. Children learn from listening and talking with a more knowledgeable person, but they also require scaffolding through demonstration, and actual participation in the task or activity in a realistic context. Effective teachers know that they cannot leave learning to discover but must structure activities at the justright level and support learning through conversation, modeling, and active participation in tasks (Pre