A Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction In English Writing Classes Of High Schools

Writing is one of the basic skills during the development of language communication,which effectively reflects students’ language expression and application ability.However,the English writing level of senior high school students is not optimistic.Scaffolding teaching is to advocate teachers to “student-centered” mode and designs according to the characteristics of students’ learning to promote students’ active learning awareness and improve their English writing levels.Therefore,it is necessary to explore an effective senior high school English writing teaching model to improve high school students’ English writing ability.Based on the constructivism theory and the theory of zone of proximal development,classroom observation,questionnaire,and interview are adopted in this study to investigate 85 English teachers and 302 students from five senior high schools in Chaozhou,Guangdong Province.This paper addresses the following three questions:（1）What types of scaffolding are mostly employed by teachers in senior high school English writing classes?（2）How are the major types of instructional scaffolding distributed in high schools English writing teaching in senior high school?（3）What are the contributing factors to the teachers’ use of various types of scaffolding?The results show that:（1）Teachers adopt diverse types of instructional scaffolding in English writing teaching,including example-based scaffolding,diagram-based scaffolding,encouragement-based scaffolding,context-based scaffolding,cooperation-based scaffolding,and question-based scaffolding.（2）Among all the scaffolding types,examples-based,question-based and context-based scaffolding are dominant in English writing teaching.Other three types of scaffolding play an indispensable and supplementary role.However,the frequency of encouragement-based scaffolding is the minimum.（3）The contributing factors to the selective use of scaffolding instruction stem from both teachers and students.In terms of students,their learning motivation and writing habits are the main concern,while for the teacher,teaching aims and the role are important.Based on the above problems,this study proposes the following recommendations:（1）Teachers should provide the appropriate quantities of scaffolding in the right form according to the students’ zone of proximal development.（2）Teachers ought to be guiders and facilitators rather than managers.（3）In developing students’ English language skills,students’ core competence in English discipline and learning motivation should not be ignored.Last but not least,a few feasible suggestions are presented by the author based on the findings to afford insight and inspiration for subsequent studies on English writing instruction.