A Comparative Study Of Scaffolding Talk In English Classroom Interaction Between Pre-service And In-service Teachers From Senior High School

Teacher discourse is a crucial aspect of classroom teaching.In the second language classroom,it not only acts as the input for students’ second language learning,but also as the instruction of students’ learning in the second language classroom.Teachers’ discourse,though,cannot entirely replace students’ learning.As a result of education being mostly exam-oriented over the long term,teachers continue to have a dominant role in the classroom.Teachers’ teaching occupies most of the time in class,therefore it is difficult to say whether the corresponding support for students is appropriate and effective.Given this,this study aims to thoroughly explore the similarities and differences between pre-service teachers and in-service teachers in the use of scaffolding talk in English classroom interaction,as well as the contributing factors of these similarities and differences.Many studies attempt to put teacher scaffolding talk in the second language classroom to explore its characteristics and applications.However,in local Chinese contexts,the studies on teacher scaffolding talk in senior high school classrooms are insufficient.This study takes three pre-service teachers and three in-service teachers,in total six teachers from a high school in Wuhan as research participants,and adopts the methods of the classroom observation and the semi-structured interview to address the following three research questions:(1)What are the similarities and differences between the types of scaffolding talk used by pre-service teachers and in-service teachers?(2)When teachers encounter students’ poor performance,what are the similarities and differences in the characteristics of scaffolding talk used by pre-service and in-service teachers?(3)What are the factors contributing to their scaffolding talk between pre-service and in-service teachers?The research results are as follows:(1)In terms of scaffolding types,there are scaffolding intentions and means.For scaffolding intention,pre-service teachers employ meta-cognitive scaffolding the least while in-service teachers use linguistic scaffolding the least.For scaffolding means,it is seen that some strategies only appear in one group of teachers’ lessons,such as directly answering students’ questions,simple repetition,criticizing for attention and developing cultural confidence for in-service teachers,and arousing interest and promoting inclusiveness for pre-service teachers.(2)When students perform poorly,in-service teachers offer more contingent scaffolding,which is responsive to the situation of students,dynamic,and with strong emotions.However,the scaffolding of pre-service teachers is not as contingent with broad,unresponsive,and inflexible scaffolding as evidence.(3)Third,the factors contributing to teachers’ use of scaffolding are as follows: factors of teachers including the professional competence of teachers,teachers’ belief and teachers’ experience;factors of contexts including the current educational environment and the online teaching model during the study;factors of the scaffolding like the nature of the scaffolding.Based on the aforementioned conclusions,to help teachers make the most of classroom time and promote students’ independent learning and high-level development,this study offers suggestions for English teachers and students: teachers are advised to learn more about various strategies of scaffolding for self-improvement,encourage students to participate in classroom activities,and give more consideration to the principle of affective scaffolding that problem-solving should be less dangerous or stressful with a tutor than without;students are expected to actively participate in the class activity and respond to teachers’ tasks,contributing to the successful construction of teacher scaffolding talk.