A Study On The Scaffolding Of English Teacher Verbal Feedback In Senior Middle Schools

English classroom teaching is the main method of English learning for senior middle school students in China.Teacher verbal feedback refers to the verbal response of the teacher to the student’s response after the teacher asks a question in the teaching process of teacher question-student response-teacher feedback,which plays a vital role in providing scaffolding for students’ learning to effect their development of language,cognitive and emotional abilities.Therefore,understanding the current situation of the use of the English teacher verbal feedback’s scaffolding in senior middle school is an important subject worth of research.Based on the Vygotsky’s scaffolding theory,Krashend’s input hypothesis,Swain’s output hypothesis,and Michael Long’s interaction theory,and referring to the analysis framework of verbal feedback’s scaffolding of other scholars from the three dimensions of language scaffolding,cognitive scaffolding and emotional scaffolding,the study tried to investigate the current status of the use of English teacher verbal feedback’s scaffolding.In this research,15 different ages and genders teachers from 3 senior middle schools in Da Tong and the students that they taught were studied,in which nine teachers were observed for 27 classes,from September to December in 2019.After class,169 students from 15teachers’ classes were randomly selected to distribute questionnaires.This study will focus on the following three issues:1.What are the characteristics of teacher verbal feedback’s scaffolding?2.What are the differences on the use of teacher verbal feedback’s scaffolding between different teachers?3.What are the views of students on teacher verbal feedback’s scaffolding?Based on the analysis and discussion of classroom observation and the collected data from questionnaire,the results are as following:1.Based on classroom observation,teacher verbal feedback can provide language,cognitive and emotional scaffolding.As far as the language scaffolding is concerned,teacher verbal feedback can create understanding tasks and self-expression environment for students through the method of using giving tips and making a detailed inquiry,and help students improve the target language in self-correction through using the method of clear error correction,restatement and metalingual feedback;as far as the cognitive scaffolding is concerned,the teacher verbal feedback simplifies the task by using the method of simplifying question and repeating question,gives the students demonstration through the feedback method of giving examples,and makes critical features to the students through the feedback method of repeating;as far as the emotional scaffolding is concerned,teacher verbal feedback can arouse students’ learning interest through using expanding knowledge,and can reduce students’ classroom anxiety and give self-confidence in the students’ learning process through using the method of comforting,encouraging,affirming,and commenting.Teachers can adopt different feedback methods based on different classroom tasks and student responses,but the use of feedback methods varies greatly and are distributed unbalanced.2.Based on a contrast on classroom observation of different teaching age and gender teachers,it can be concluded that there are differences in the use of scaffolding by 9 teachers.When using the verbal feedback’s three kinds of scaffolding,all 9 teachers preferred to use the feedback method of giving tips,making a detailed inquiry,clear error correction,simplifying question,repeating question,giving examples,comforting,encouraging,affirming and commenting,but 4 experienced teachers have a better cognition on the situation that students need help of scaffolding than 5 young inexperienced teachers,and consciously use three kinds of scaffolding to help students in the question-response-feedback interaction with more diversity and combination.In terms of gender,the use of verbal feedback by 3male teachers prefers the cognitive and language scaffolding with more progressive.While the use of verbal feedback of 6 female teachers prefers the emotional scaffolding with more appropriateness.3.Based on the analysis of the questionnaire,senior middle schools’ students approve the language,cognitive,and emotional scaffolding of teacher verbal feedback.The gap of students’ ability is clear,and the students’ preference for the scaffolding of verbal feedback is different.63(93% N=68)high-middle grade students prefer teachers to use cognitive and language scaffolding in the classroom.73(72% N=101)middle-low grades students prefer to use the emotional scaffolding in the classroom.As for language scaffolding is concerned,both like feedback method with less difficult;as for as the cognitive scaffolding is concerned,both have the same preference for feedback method;as far as the emotional scaffolding is concerned,high-middle grade students prefer feedback method with difficulty,while middle-low grade students prefer less difficulty.Based on the analysis of the scaffolding of senior middle schools’ English teacher verbal feedback,the author draws some educational inspirations and teaching suggestions,hoping to improve and self-improve in the future practice of English classroom teacher verbal feedback.