An Empirical Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction To Oral English Teaching In Rural Junior Middle Schools

This thesis makes an empirical study on the influence of Scaffolding Teaching Mode on oral English teaching in rural junior middle schools.The purpose of this experiment is to explore the influence of Scaffolding Teaching Mode on the motivation and expression ability of rural junior middle school students in oral English learning.At present,many studies mainly focus on how to effectively build scaffolding and how to operate it in the teaching process.However,there are few studies on the motivation of students to learn spoken English and the influence of oral English expression ability.From the related research of Scaffolding Teaching mode,it can be concluded that scaffolding teaching mode has a great effect on students’ interest,self-confidence in oral English learning,oral English expression and improvement of English achievement.Teachers’ active use of Scaffolding Teaching Mode and the change of traditional teaching mode can effectively improve the motivation of students’ oral English and improve their oral English expression ability.Based on Vygowski’ s theory of the zone of proximal development and autonomous learning,this thesis builds a scaffold for students,creates situations,guides students to explore independently,cooperates and exchanges actively,and then evaluates themselves in the teaching process.In the zone of proximal development,the scaffolds are given in time so that students can cross the zone of proximal development.Finally,teachers gradually remove the scaffolds and students actively construct new knowledge.This study lasts one semester.The subjects of the study are 106 students in two classes of Grade 7 in Lengshuijiang Heqing Central School.The two classes are experimental class and control class.Both classes are taught by the author.The experimental class are taught in Scaffolding Teaching mode,while the control class are still taught in traditional teaching mode.Two questions are discussed in this thesis:(1)What is the influence of Scaffolding Teaching Mode on students’ motivation to learn spoken English?(2)What is the effect of Scaffolding Teaching Mode on students’ oral English expression ability?In order to solve the above problems,in the first week of the experiment,the author conducts a oral test,and in the last week of the experiment,a post-test is conducted.Questionnaires are conducted before and after the experiment,and interviews among the experimental class are conducted after the experiment.The results of the oral pre-test and post-test of the experiment are analyzed with the aid of SPSS24.0.The results of the questionnaire are analyzed quantitatively,while the interviews are analyzed qualitatively.The results show that 1)the motivation of the students in the experimental class has been significantly improved due to the applicationof Scaffolding Teaching Model in oral English classroom teaching,while the motivation of the students in the control class has not been greatly improved in the traditional teaching method;2)the students in the experimental class have significantly improved their oral English expression ability due to the enhancement of the motivation of the students in the experimental class.Because of the traditional teaching mode,the control class students’ oral expression ability has not been greatly improved.Therefore,the research shows that it is feasible and effective to apply Scaffolding Teaching Model to oral English teaching in rural junior middle schools.However,due to the limitations of location and time,this study has some limitations.First,the sample size is too small.Only 106 students participated in the experiment.Second,the experiment time is relatively short,which lasts only one semester.Further research should last for one year and cover a larger sample.