A Study Of Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School On The Basis Of Scaffolding Instruction

Vocabulary is the basic foundation for language learning. Therefore, the size of vocabulary and the capacity of vocabulary learning have a direct impact on language learners’ thinking and communicative ability. Nowadays, influenced by the trend of economic globalization, the requirements for the capacity of foreign language learners’ have been getting higher. Under such circumstance, improving the efficiency of students’ vocabulary learning and thus promoting students overall pragmatic competence have become one of the main challenges in foreign language teaching. However, under the influence of the traditional concept of behaviorism, the conventional ways of teaching vocabulary in isolation and learning vocabulary through mechanical rote still remains prevalent. In recent years, many educators have resorted to constructivism which emphasizes the importance of the learners being actively involved in the learning process to obtain knowledge and they also try to improve vocabulary teaching by actively exploring scaffolding instruction. However, studies on the application of scaffolding instruction at senior high school vocabulary teaching are still relatively rare.According to this, this paper expounds the theoretical bases of scaffolding instruction, investigates the current situation of English vocabulary teaching and learning at a senior high school and explores the application and effects of scaffolding instruction in senior high school vocabulary teaching. In this research, the author adopts both qualitative and quantitative methods. Questionnaire survey was conducted among 120 senior two students and 20 English teachers from Yulin Senior High School in Shaanxi province. Through investigation, the author have some findings. First, the majority of the teachers have adopted the traditional vocabulary teaching method to teach students vocabulary and their teaching methods are single. Second, most of the students lack vocabulary learning strategies and learn vocabulary in low efficiency. Third, only a few students have the awareness of vocabulary learning strategies and learn vocabulary well. Next, the author conducted a teaching experiment in which she adopted the scaffolding instruction to vocabulary teaching. Through the analysis of the data collected from the experiment, it indicates that compared with the traditional vocabulary teaching method, scaffolding instruction is a more effective teaching method to improve students’ ability to learn vocabulary and it also has a positive influence on the development of cooperation among students.According to the above, the author thinks that adopting the scaffolding instruction to senior high school vocabulary teaching and providing necessary supports for students can not only effectively improve students’ vocabulary scores but promote students’ vocabulary learning abilities. Concerning about this, the author also gives some suggestions for vocabulary teaching.