An Application Of Scaffolding Instruction To The English Teaching Of Writing In Senior School

The cultivation of English writing ability is one of the aims of high school English teaching. As an output skill, it is not only of help to improve the language knowledge and skills, but is the embodiment of the students’ comprehensive ability to use language. Therefore, the position of writing cannot be ignored in language teaching. However, there still exists a lot of problems in high school English writing teaching today. In the process of exploring which teaching mode can improve high school English writing teaching effectively, It can be discovered that the scaffolding teaching is one of the effective teaching mode.Scaffolding instruction is based upon the Vygotsky’s theory of the“zone of proximal development” and the constructivism teaching theory.It refers to take the student as the center and use the learning environment elements such as situation, cooperation, conversation to give full play to the students’ initiative, positivity and pioneering spirit in the teaching, and finally causes the student to effectively achieve the purpose of the current knowledge in the meaning construction. Foreign teaching practice shows that this teaching model, to the domestic high school English writingteaching has the vital significance. Therefore, this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of applying the scaffolding instruction into the English writing in senior high school. The research questions are as follows: 1) Is the scaffolding instruction more effective in improving students’ English writing, compared with the traditional English teaching? 2) Are students’ attitudes positive after applying the scaffolding instruction in English writing? 3) Can the scaffolding instruction enhance the students’ interest in English writing?Through literature analysis, this paper defines the essential connotation of scaffolding instruction and theoretical basis of scaffolding instruction has been carried on before and after the experiment. The research subjects are students coming from No. 11 middle school, Huai Ren County, Shanxi Province. A survey has been done by using questionnaire to get related information about students’ attitudes and interests to the teaching method. By using SPSS the experimental data has been collected and analyzed. The paper draws its conclusion that compared with the traditional writing teaching method, the application of scaffolding instruction is more conducive to improve the students’ writing level; and this kind of teaching method can improve the students’ interest in English writing. The scaffolding teaching method also hold a positive attitude for students. Finally, the paper based on the main findings gives some suggestions on the teaching of English writing in senior high school.The author hopes that the result of this study can provide certain reference for further research of the scaffolding instruction in China.