SCAFFOLDED AI INTEGRATION IN THE SECONDARY ESL WRITING PROCESS

Authors

Mariefel R. Sumatra, Desiree Claire L. Visande, Josephine L. Barredo

Abstract

The integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms has sparked intense debate, threatening to collapse the hard-won gains of process-oriented writing methodologies back into automated product compliance. This qualitative phenomenological case study investigates how secondary ESL students experience a pedagogically scaffolded GenAI writing framework designed to act as a digital "More Knowledgeable Other" (MKO) within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Moving away from traditional quantitative measures of structural accuracy, this study examines the lived experiences of twenty (20) Grade 10 ESL students over an eight-week academic writing unit. Data collection comprised student reflection journals, classroom observation logs, and semi-structured focus group discussions. Inductive thematic analysis revealed three primary dimensions of the student experience: the mitigation of affective writing barriers, an ongoing negotiation of authorial ownership, and the development of critical digital agency. The findings suggest that when GenAI is strictly bounded as a cognitive scaffold rather than a text generator, it preserves the non-linear, recursive journey of composition while fostering heightened metacognitive awareness and linguistic autonomy.

Keywords

Authorial Identity; Phenomenological Case Study; ProcessOriented Writing; Scaffolded AI Integration; Zone of Proximal Development