An Application Of Scaffolding Theory In Theme-based English Writing Instruction At Senior High Schools

Aimed at students’ lack of writing motivation, even fear of it and the current situation of their lacking the ability to use words, and combined with the specific requirements of senior high school writing teaching in the New English Curriculum Criterion and the scaffolding theory, this thesis puts forward the idea of applying the scaffolding theory to theme-based writing teaching. Research questions include: whether this approach 1) can stimulate students’ interests in writing; 2) can effectively improve students’ ability to use the theme-related vocabulary when writing; 3) can improve the students’ overall writing ability. The senior two students of the author’s own school were selected as the research subjects for a one-semester teaching experiment, whose content involves 8 unit themes in New Century English textbook three, and in which the teaching mode is a theme-based writing approach, with vocabulary scaffolds taking the priority, assisted by emotion, content and evaluation scaffolds. The experimental results show that the new teaching approach can effectively improve students’ ability of using the theme-related vocabulary, but there is no significant difference between the experimental class and controlled class in the writing scores of the post-test. After the experiment, the author individually interviewed several students of different levels of English writing and found that the new teaching approach can stimulate students’ interests in English writing, strengthen the cooperation and interaction between students, and alleviate the anxiety of students especially those students poor in writing. The enlightenment of this study is that although the one-semester teaching experiment is not long enough to enhance the level of the students’ overall writing immediately, from the effects of vocabulary use and interests in writing, the suitable scaffolds set up by the teacher in the writing teaching according to students’ zone of proximal development are beneficial.