A Study On The Current Situation Of English Picture Books Teaching In Primary Schools Based On Scaffolding Theory ——A Case Study Of H City In Jiangsu Province

It is very crucial to develop children’s reading skills,which is mentioned in the English Curriculum Standards 2011.To reach the goal,it is necessary for children to read more books.As a beneficial supplementary material in primary school English learning,picture books play an important role in promoting students’ language ability.However,research on optimizing picture books teaching is limited,including scaffolding used in this lesson type.This dissertation investigates and analyzes the current utilization of scaffolding in picture books teaching to raise concern for the development of students’ reading skills.The research object is scaffolding in primary school.This paper studies the overall situation of using scaffolding in English classrooms at primary school.First,207 questionnaires have been sent in H city,a city in Jiangsu Province,in order to collect teacher’s information and attitudes.Afterwards,a primary school has been chosen to observe 12 English picture book reading lessons and 6 teachers has been invited to accept the interview.Based on the research,four questions are discussed: teachers’ understanding and attitude;usage of various types of scaffolding and the utilization of the scaffolding in three teaching process（pre-/while-/post-reading）;the teachers’ attention level to the scaffolding characteristics;the difficulties faced by the teachers when they use scaffolding.Through the research,it is discovered that primary school English teachers hold a clear understanding of scaffolding theory in general.However,due to the limit of school location,educational background and knowledge background,some teachers are still at the stage of perceptual knowledge.Secondly,there are various types of scaffolds used in the teaching process,and different teachers have certain tendentiousness in the types of scaffolds and in teaching sessions.Finally,although most teachers could focus on the characteristics of scaffolds.However,some teachers fail to notice student-centered strategy.What’s more,different teachers hold different level of attention.The lack of sufficient teaching time is the biggest problem encountered by teachers when using scaffolding.Based on these,four suggestions have been made for teachers,in order to enhance the picture book teaching.