Analysis Of Teacher’S Scaffolding Talk In "One-on-One" Tutoring Of English Academic Writing

The advancement of international communication has led to more and more opportunities for academic exchanges among different countries.There is also an increasing demand for Chinese scholars to attend international conferences for academic exchanges and to publish academic papers.Therefore,international academic journals are significant for Chinese authors.Since the beginning of the 21 st century,in the background of “double first-class” discipline construction and internationalized talent development,the requirements for language literacy,especially English language literacy,have become higher and higher.“Academic English” has received more and more attention and favor in the curriculum of some universities.However,most of the courses still follow the teaching method of general writing,this makes it difficult to address the practical difficulties encountered in the academic writing process.In recent years,influenced by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory,the notion of“scaffolding” has been more and more adopted to the process of English writing teaching.The traditional teacher-centered writing tutorial is progressively shifting to a student-centered instructional model.Teacher talk plays a crucial role in scaffolding teaching.The discourse used by teachers in scaffolding students to achieve higher cognitive level is called “scaffolding talk”.As a new research perspective,the role of teachers’ scaffolding talk has contributed to the development of writing instruction.However,not enough attention has been paid to how scaffolding talk can promote academic writing abilities.This study was conducted over one semester with teachers and students participating in the “Academic English and Literacy Advancement” at a university in Northeast China,using classroom observation,discourse analysis and interviews to analyze the discourse of teachers-students interaction during the “one-on-one” writing tutoring process.The audio-recording was transcribed into written texts and teachers’ scaffolding talk involved was analyzed.(i.e.oral instruction provided by teachers in three contexts: when students are unable to answer a question;when they have difficulties in organizing language;when their answers are incorrect,vague or incomplete).Five students were selected to be interviewed about their comments and suggestions about teachers’ scaffolding talk.On the basis of sociocultural theory,this thesis mainly discusses the following three questions: 1.What are the functions of teacher’s scaffolding talk in one-on-one tutoring? 2.What are the students’ comments and suggestions about teachers’ scaffolding talk? 3.How to improve the effectiveness of teachers’ scaffolding talk?The thesis has achieved the following conclusions: First,the specific functions of scaffolding talk in “one-on-one” tutoring include: simplifying the tasks,direction maintenance,marking critical features frustration control,and demonstration.Each function has its own focus and complements the other,together contributing to the improvement of student’s academic writing ability.Second,all students adopted a positive comment on the teacher’s scaffolding talk,affirming the role of teachers’ scaffolding talk in facilitating academic writing and pointing out the shortcomings of the “one-on-one” tutoring model.Finally,the thesis suggests some strategies to improve the effectiveness of teachers’ scaffolding talk.During the process of writing tutoring,teachers should guide students to pay attention to the gap between their current level of knowledge and the requirements of the target language,meanwhile,they should strengthen implicit assistance,encourage students to develop their learning autonomy on the basis of giving appropriate help,and remove the scaffolding in time after students complete the internalization process from other-regulation to self-regulation.Since there are few studies on the impact of teachers’ scaffolding talk on academic writing instruction in China,this study can provide a reference for related research and facilitate the development of future research on academic writing instruction.