An Experimental Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction To English Reading Teaching In Higher Vocational Colleges

As the main way for people to obtain information, reading plays an important role in English learning for vocational students. According to the Basic Requirements for Higher Vocational English Course(2000), English reading is important in English learning for the students in higher vocational schools. Though great progress has been made in English reading teaching, there exist many problems in the current English reading teaching in vocational schools. Therefore to improve the students’ reading proficiency and activate their interest towards English becomes an urgent challenge.Scaffolding instruction is a popular teaching model,which was originated from constructivism, the theory of Zone of Proximal Development(ZPD) and sociocultural theory both proposed by Vygotsky. With the assistance of teacher, learners complete the tasks that are difficult or impossible to finish independently through setting up scaffolds. After a period of training, when the temporary support is removed gradually, the learner can solve problems on his own, which makes him more independent and confident. This teaching method has been proved very effective and it is applied widely in western countries. While in China a number of empirical studies have been carried out on Elementary Education, there are very few studies on Higher Education, especially in the field of English reading in higher vocational colleges. This research mainly focuses on the study of scaffolding instruction and its application in English reading in higher vocational colleges. The research aims to find out whether the scaffolding instruction teaching can improve students’ English reading proficiency, including finding the detailed information, guessing the meaning, summarizing and inferring; whether scaffolding instruction can help arouse vocational students’ interest and motivation in reading.The first question tries to testify whether scaffolding instruction can help students to improve the proficiency, especially on micro reading skills through test data. The second question is to find out whether this approach is really beneficial to arouse interest in reading through questionnaire and interview.The experiment was carried out during the period from September, 2015 to January, 2016 in Hebei Women Vocational College. 100 students from two parallel classes are selected as the subjects of this study. One of the classes is assigned as control class, and the other is experimental class. The traditional teaching method is still used in the control class, while the scaffolding instruction is adopted in the experimental class.Instruments are applied in the study, the pre-test and post-test, questionnaire and interview. The results of the experimental study prove that the students in the experimental class have improved their English reading abilities more rapidly than those in the control class. Besides that, it is also found that the use of scaffolding instruction can activate students’ interest and motivation in English reading. In brief, it indicates that scaffolding instruction is effective in pedagogical activities in higher vocational college.