Peer Scaffoldings And Patterns Of Interaction: A Case Study Of Self-Directed Oral English Learning

It is said that majority of EFL Chinese learners do not communicate and interact with teachers in class as frequently as with their fellow students. When confronted with problems or difficulties in learning, they are more likely to turn to their peers. During the peer interactions, they can not only exchange learning experience and support each other emotionally, but also improve their language competence.Based on the Sociocultural Theories, the present thesis aimed to observe and investigate peer scaffoldings and patterns of interaction during the process of self-directed English learning. The research questions are: 1) What features of peer scaffoldings occur in student’s oral English learning? 2) What kind of interaction patterns are displayed in different pairs? 3) How do the students feel during the process of self-directed English learning?The subjects were four freshmen from an English association in Guangxi University for Nationalities. Observation, interviews and learning diaries were used in collecting the research data from the four students’ English dialogues, together with their learning diaries and interviews during their learning activities. The time for the observations lasted six weeks. In the study, Lidz’s classification of scaffolding and Storch’s patterns of interaction were adopted as mainly reference in analyzing the observed English dialogues; and the qualitative approach was applied in explaining the learning diaries and interviews data.The results report as follows: 1) Four peer scaffoldings are most frequently used during the self-directed oral English learning: intentionality, contingent responsivity, affective involvement, praise/encouragement. 2) Three patterns of interaction are displayed in students’ different pairs of dialogues: dominant/ passive, expert/ novice, collaborative. 3) The results of student’ learning diaries and interviews reveal that the four subjects have benefited a lot from peer interaction, although they are worried much about incorrect language produced by their peers.The present research on features of peer scaffolding in students’ oral English learning and analysis of patterns of interaction might provide some reference to L2 teaching and Second Language Acquisition research.