Zhou HongXia, Dr Tan Chee Lay 

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Abstract

Teaching writing is not easy, in Singapore's Chinese as a Second Language scenario, it is an even harder task. There are two conflicts facing the teaching of writing: students are scared of writing, but the curriculum demands higher in the percentage of writing skills; teachers are also not very confident in teaching writing in a systematic way. The skill of writing is not like some fact knowledge in Science, which can be taught through a I-teach-you-listen kind of transmissive manner. To enhance students' writing skills, the teachers need to lead the students through full participation in writing activities, providing them sufficient and helpful scaffolding. This paper shared on how to design the scaffolding activities to help the students construct their standard and awareness on essay assessment based on the theory and design principles of constructivism.

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Keyword(s) : scaffolding; constructivism; teaching of writing