A Study On Scaffolded English Reading Instruction In Senior High School

Learning any language requires a lot of reading,and learning English is no exception.Reading,as the main means for people to get information,has attracted more and more scholars' attention.The academic quality of National English Curriculum Standards for Common Senior High School(2017 Edition)puts forward higher requirements on the English reading of middle school students.However,in a sense,there are still many problems which attract great attention in the current teaching of senior high school English reading.The scaffolded teaching,which originated from the "Zone of Proximal Development" theory of Vygotsky,is a relatively mature practical application in the teaching fields under the guidance of its theory.The scaffolded reading teaching mode regards these five steps,provide scaffolding,enter the situation,independent exploration,cooperative learning and evaluation,as the basic procedure,which provide timely scaffolding for students in the teaching process.Based on models of reading process,schema theory,and “zone of proximal development” theory,this study aims to answer the following three research questions on account of classroom practice: 1)Is scaffolded instruction more effective than the grammar-translation approach in improving the overall reading achievements of senior high school students? 2)In which type of reading questions do students make the greatest improvement,understanding the questions about details,the author's attitude,reference,guessing word meaning,inference and main idea? 3)Is scaffolded instruction more effective than the grammar-translation approach in improving reading strategies of senior high school students? Two parallel classes of Grade 1 from No.5 senior high school of Qin'an are selected as the experimental class and the control class.The teaching experiment lasts for two months.The scaffolded instruction is applied in class 1 while the grammar-translation approach is carried out in class 2.Tests and questionnaires,as the research instruments,are used in the thesis to reach the teaching effects and offer a new idea for an English reading class in senior high school.All the data after the collection is completed with the help of SPSS 24.0.The research results show that the scaffolded instruction is more effective for the improvement in reading achievements of senior high school students,although the results of these two classes have been improved.Students make the greatest improvement in the “main idea” question type,and the scaffolded instruction also improves the students' reading strategies.It is a workable teaching method of English reading.At the same time,there are some deficiencies of this study,such as a diminished number of subjects,shorter experimental cycles,etc.Future studies can expand the sample population,prolong experiments cycle,and analyze scaffolded instruction more objectively.