The Influence of Metacognitive Scaffolding on Learning Academic Writing Online

Abstract

The pandemic has caused a big wave of change in the way teaching is done. One of the many areas of concern is that the teaching that was previously done not only face -to-face but also using hands-on; coupled with one-to-one or group by group conferences, is now done online. How can that be done online? In the traditional face-to-face classroom, the writing teacher monitors the working memory of the writers (planning, translating and reviewing) by marking and making comments of the learners’ drafts. The comments and recommendations for changes made by the teachers acted as scaffolds to the learners to guide them to improve on their writing. When online learning hits the classrooms, writing teachers need to incorporate creative language teaching into the online classrooms. This study explores the use of metacognitive scaffolding on learning academic writing online. Learners were taught metacognitive scaffolding during online classes. They responded to the survey. Findings revealed interesting implications for teaching and learning of academic writing online.