A Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction In English Reading Teaching At Higher Vocational College

Nowadays, under the growing integration of world economy, culture and politics, English is thought as the basic language skill for people to learn and use in daily life. As for students, English reading is one of the main approaches for students to improve comprehensive competence when learning foreign languages. As a compulsory course at higher vocational college, no matter what majors students choose, public English class is highly regarded as a significant course which can not only help students master cultural knowledge of foreign languages but also reinforce their own competitiveness in the future. As one of the significant parts in English learning, English reading puts more emphasis on cultivating students' reading ability and practical exercise competence when they encounter some English reading articles. However, some obstacles from the aspects of students and teachers still exist which might hinder students' development in English reading class to some extent. As a result, these tough issues have made some bad impact on the interactive relationship between teachers and students. So this severe situation has come up with higher requirements for researchers during the teaching process. Therefore, the primary problems of how to motivate students' interest and attitude toward English reading and how to improve students' reading ability are the dominant tasks for educators to deal with immediately.Among so many latest research achievements, constructivism learning theory is one of the most primary theories which advocates student-centered view and puts more emphasis on constructing knowledge by oneself during the process of learning. Under the guidance of constructivism learning theory, scaffolding instruction is a new teaching method which is formed on Vygotsky's zone of proximal development(ZPD). Scaffolding instruction is a timely and temporary support from capable adults and companions in order to assist learners exploring new knowledge based on their own previous experiences and knowledge independently so as to improve their learning ability gradually. When learners have mastered knowledge and completed tasks independently at last, the scaffolds are supposed to withdraw step by step on time by providers.However, based on literature review, it is found that in China there are a few empirical studies toward the application of scaffolding instruction in English reading class at higher vocational college. In this thesis, author tries to testify the effectiveness of scaffolding instruction in English reading class at higher vocational college from three aspects, which are reading ability through test, reading interest, reading attitude, confidence and the evaluation towards current teaching method through questionnaire and interview.Ninety students are picked up from Grade One at Kaifeng University as research subjects. The major of Class One is computer while Class Two is vehicle maintenance and repairing. During the four-month research, Class One is chosen as experimental class and Class Two as control class. The research starts from September 1st, 2015 to January 10 th, 2016. Author tries to verify the effectiveness of scaffolding instruction in English reading class at Kaifeng University with four research instruments which are test, questionnaire, interview and SPSS software in order to get a trustworthy and reliable result at last. During the process of teaching, author intends to confirm the feasibility of scaffolding instruction based on these three questions:(1) How does teacher apply scaffolding instruction into English reading class?(2) What can students obtain from the English reading class after using scaffolding instruction in one semester?(3) Can scaffolding instruction improve the interactive relationship between teacher and students effectively in one semester?The research procedures are shown as follows:Firstly, before the teaching experiment began, pre-test was given to both experimental class and control class with the aims of examining the level of students' English reading competence so that author could have a basic understanding towards their reading level. Then, pre-questionnaire was required to complete in both classes in order to get some general ideas about their reading interest, attitude, confidence and the evaluation towards current teaching method.Secondly, the teaching experimental started. The experiment lasted from September 3rd, 2015 to January 5th, 2016. Scaffolding instruction was applied into experimental class while traditional teaching method was used in control class during the four-month experiment.Thirdly, the students from two classes took post-test in order to examine whether students' reading ability had improved or not after applying scaffolding instruction into English reading class at experimental class. Then, all students wrote the same questionnaire as pre-questionnaire so that author could find the distinctions between these two same questionnaires. At the same time, ten students from experimental class were selected randomly to have an interview with author under the comfortable and relaxing atmosphere with the aims of getting more reliable feedback about the new teaching method.Finally, author collected all the data from test and questionnaire, then used SPSS software to analyze statistics. The tables can show the statistics comparison between experimental class and control class after four-month experiment. These analyses can help author examine the feasibility of scaffolding instruction in English reading class compared with traditional teaching method.The major findings of this thesis are addressed as follows:(1) Scaffolding instruction can help students improve their reading ability effectively compared with traditional teaching method.(2) Scaffolding instruction can increase students' interest, confidence and enhance positive attitude towards English reading during the process of learning.(3) Scaffolding instruction can improve the interactive relationship between teacher and students after applying scaffolding instruction into English reading class.All in all, author expects this thesis can provide some educational implications and suggestions for further educational researches in the field of higher vocational college. Although some limitations still exist during the process of research which should be improved in later years, such as limited time, insufficient research subjects and so on, this thesis has already achieved expected results that scaffolding instruction in English reading class at higher vocational college is more effective than traditional teaching method.