Scaffolding Strategies in Online IELTS Writing Classes

Under the adverse impacts of COVID -19 pandemic, an increasing number of schools and universities, institutions and language centers have fully shifted from onsite learning to online learning. This transition has resulted in unplanned challenges, which draw attention and concerns of many teachers and scholars about teaching and learning effectiveness. In online classes, teachers should effectively scaffold students in order to facilitate the co-constructed learning process. Although there have been a large number of research on scaffolding students’ learning in face-to-face ELT classes, little has been talked about effective teachers’ scaffolding strategies in online classes, especially online IELTS writing; therefore, this is still worth receiving further considerations. The 3 main aims of this paper are to (1) critically review knowledge of scaffolding types, functions, and strategies in contemporary research; (2) analyse the most noticeable difficulties that students encountered in the online IELTS writing classes, including low level of digital literacy, poor linguistic backgrounds, anxiety when receiving teachers’ feedback, and unsuitable test types ; (3) suggest some tools and practical recommendations so that the teachers could conduct scaffolding strategies effectively to support students overcome those difficulties in online IELTS writing classes.