A Study Of Scaffolding Theory In English Writting Teaching For Vocational College Students

Basic Requirements of English Teaching in Higher Vocational Education(Trial) points out that the goal of higher vocational English education is to ”cultivate the students’ English comprehensive ability for application, especially the professional skills”. As an important language output approach, the writing ability plays an significant role among the five basic English skills “listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating”, which needs the combination of the students’ language ability and their practical communicative competence. However, “insufficient importance”, ”improper teaching method”, ”teachers’ domination in class” are all blocks on their way of improving writing skills.Guided by the scaffolding theory, the scaffolding method emphasizes providing learning support in students’ ZPD, in order to improve their learning ability. In this paper, the scaffolding method will be applied to practical writing class with the research methods of empirical research, questionnaire and interview, aiming to verify if this method is beneficial to improve the higher vocational students’ English writing ability and their learning mood, moreover,whether the over-regulation of scaffolding can affect the students’ learning level and independent ability or not. If so, how to carry out English teaching when the scaffold is removed while the students’ ability is still remained.This thesis consists of six chapters. In Chapter One, it introduces the background, the purpose and the significance of the study. Chapter Two makes a systematic and comprehensive conclusion about the application of the scaffolding method in higher vocational English teaching through literature review both at home and abroad. Chapter Three introduces the theoretical basis and connotation of the scaffolding method under which an English writing teaching mode is set up in the purpose of laying a theoretical foundation and practical model for the following study. In the forth chapter, the process and methods of the experiment are defined, then collect and deal with the data which will be analyzed in next part. Besides, chapter five will also research the comparison results between pre-test and post-test as well as the questionnaire results to draw the conclusions of the research, then summarize the corresponding teaching enlightenment. The last chapter makes a summary of this research and presents the limitations and further questions about it.Results show that the scaffolding method is helpful for improving the higher vocational students’ English writing ability and their learning mood by ameliorating the relationship between teachers and students in traditional class, arousing the students’ learning enthusiasm and improving teaching efficiency. Whereas the over-regulation of scaffolding can affect the students’ learning level and independent ability. So the author summarizes the teaching procedure after the scaffold is removed according to the practical teaching in a higher vocational college in the hope of providing reference to higher vocational teachers about their teaching method.