The Scaffolding Functions Of Classroom Verbal Feedback From Junior Middle School English Teachers In High-quality Classes

English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2022)attches the great importance to teachers’ evaluation of and feedback on students’ performance.High-quality classroom verbal feedback can not only build an active atmosphere in class,but also offer a scaffolding for the development of students.Therefore,it’s essential for English teachers to pay attention to classroom verbal feedback in daily teaching.High-quality classes might be a model in teaching.The author intends to analyze the classroom verbal feedback of junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes,hoping to provide some reference for inexperienced teachers and teachers in daily teaching.Based on the Scaffolding Theory,Input-output Hypothesis and Interaction Hypothesis,this paper is to analyze the classroom verbal feedback of six junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes by using classroom observation and discourse analysis and using qualitative data analysis software Nvivo12.The author modifies and formulates the classroom observation table of this study according to Xu and Cullen’s classification of verbal feedback functions and Liu’s observation dimension in his study to analyze the scaffolding functions of the classroom verbal feedback of junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes and the ways to achieve those functions.There are three research questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the classroom verbal feedback of junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes?(2)What kind of scaffoldings does the classroom verbal feedback of junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes provide to students?(3)How do junior middle school English teachers in high-quality classes realize these scaffolding functions of verbal feedback?The findings are as follows.Firstly,six teachers of high-quality classes use more evaluation feedbacks(59.67%)than discourse feedbacks(40.33%).The comparison of the author’s findings and Long’s(evaluation feedbacks occupy 80%and discourse feedbacks occupy 20%)shows that six teachers of high-quality classes attach more importance to discourse feedback and students’ language output.Secondly,the form of evaluation feedback of six teachers of high-quality classes is not varied.The six teachers of high-quality classes use simple affirmations in evaluation feedback and recasting in discourse feedback.Thirdly,the classroom verbal feedback of English teachers in high-quality classes can provide students with language,cognitive and emotional scaffolfings.Most teachers of high-quality classes use positive feedbacks appropriatly in class,such as simple affirmation,affirmative repetition,affirmative expansion,affirmative inspiration,etc.to realize the language,cognitive and emotional support functions of evaluation feedbacks.Besides,teachers of high-quality classes use discourse feedbacks to provide students with emotional scaffolding,but the awareness of discourse feedback still needs to be strengthened.To conclude,the author suggests that teachers should strengthen the awareness of discourse feedback to maintain teacher-student interactions,enrich the form of evaluation feedback to create meaningful feedback in class and implement the scaffolding functions of verbal feedback to achieve effective classroom verbal feedback.