An Analysis Of College English Classroom Discourse On The Basis Of Scaffolding Theory

College English teaching, as one of the most significant ways of English learning, isalways playing a prominent part in improving college students’ English abilities. On onehand, the analysis of classroom discourse, which is regarded as an important manner ofinvestigating English classroom, can restore the real scene of classroom context from theperspectives of teacher’s talk, teacher-student interaction and classroom teaching activities.On the other hand, the scaffolding theory can assist people to take acknowledge ofteachers and students’ contribution in the real teaching context, the advantages anddisadvantages of the teaching methods and the problems that might appear in classroomactivities. Therefore, the analysis of college English classroom discourse on the basis ofscaffolding theory can provided college students with the theoretical and practical supportto improve their English abilities.This thesis chooses teacher-student talk of college English classroom as the subject.Three classes of the first grade and three classes of the second grade of non-English majorin Yanshan University are chosen to assist the author to complete the research. Drawing onthe previous experiences of classroom discourse analysis, this research combines thescaffolding theory and classroom observation together to make a detailed description andanalysis of the real classroom context. Some suggestions have also been offered toimprove students’ English skills and abilities.The research content of the study includes: firstly, what types of classroom discoursestructure and their scaffolding functions are; secondly, what types of teacher’s questionsand their scaffolding functions are; thirdly, what the types of teacher’s feedbacks and theirscaffolding functions are; and fourthly, what the advantages and disadvantages ofteacher-student talk are and what solutions can be chosen to deal with it. In this researchboth quantitative and qualitative methods are employed. Excel is employed to calculatethe frequency of classroom discourse structure, teacher’s questions, teacher’s feedbacksand their scaffolding functions for the sake of digging out the corresponding rules andcharacteristics of college English classroom discourse. As for the qualitative method,every representative case has been analyzed in detail. The research results show that there are mainly two types of discourse structures inclassroom discourse that are the simple structures and the complex structures, and the IRFstructures are the most frequently used structure. As for the scaffolding functions,feedback， marking critical features, direction maintenance, recruitment, simplifying thetask and frustration control are frequently used functions, and the frequency of feedback,marking critical features and direction maintenance is higher than that of other scaffoldingfunctions. In terms of teacher’s questions, the number of the display questions overwhelmthe referential questions, and the scaffolding functions involved are direction maintenanceand recruitment, with the frequency of recruitment higher than that of directionmaintenance. As for teacher’s feedbacks, the positive feedbacks are more frequently usedthan the negative feedbacks, and demonstration, feedback and frustration control are morefrequently used scaffolding functions with the frequency of feedback higher than that ofdemonstration and frustration control. Via the case study, some disadvantages such as theclassroom discourse structures are too simple without any hierarchical and progressivecharacteristics are found. Meanwhile, the idea that teaching is important than enlighteninghas overwhelm people’s mind and which can also become one of the most importantnegative factors influencing the quality of teacher-student talk.