The Effects Of Different Types Of Writing Scaffolding On Senior Two Students’ English Writing Self-concept

As one of the four basic skills of English learning(listening,speaking,reading and writing),English writing plays an important role in English learning.However,the current situation of the teaching of English writing in senior high schools is not optimistic.For most students,writing is difficult and is usually a weak part in their English learning.In recent years,researchers have conducted studies on students’ writing ability from the perspectives of learners’ interest,attitude and anxiety in writing,but have paid relatively less attention to self-concept(an important part of learners’ emotional factors).It thus becomes a meaningful topic to explore the students’ English writing self-concept and how to help students improve their English writing self-concept through the adaptation of appropriate teaching strategies and methods(such as providing multiple writing scaffolding).Based on a questionnaire survey conducted among 518 Senior Two students from Zixi Middle School in Chuxiong,this study investigates and describes the current situation of Senior Two students’ English writing self-concept.In addition,a four-month experimental study is done in two Senior Two classes(class18 as the experimental class and class 9 as the control class)to explore the effects of different types of English writing scaffolding on students’ English writing self-concept.When teaching the experimental class,the teacher adopted process-writing method and provided more writing scaffolding(“content scaffolding”,“language scaffolding”,“logic scaffolding”,“emotion scaffolding”,“example scaffolding”,“evaluation scaffolding ”)in the writing class,while teaching the control class using process-writing method but provided no obvious scaffolding.At the end of the teaching experiment,questionnaire survey and interview were used as supplement to attain more information about the effect of different types of scaffolding on students’ writing self-concept.All data collected in this study were analyzed by SPSS.22.The results show that(1)The writing self-concept of Senior Two students is relatively low.(2)English writing scaffolding can improve Senior Two students’ English writing self-concept,but to students with different English writing abilities(higher achievers,intermediate achievers and low achievers),such effect varies.Generally speaking,the most influential types of scaffolding are “evaluation scaffolding”,“example scaffolding”,“content scaffolding”,“language scaffolding”,“emotion scaffolding” and “logic scaffolding” respectively.To be more specific,“evaluation scaffolding”,“content scaffolding”,and “logical scaffolding” are the most influential scaffolding for improving English writing self-concept of the higher achievers.“Evaluation scaffolding”,“language scaffolding” and “emotional scaffolding” are the most influential ones for the intermediate achievers,while “language scaffolding”,“example scaffolding” and “emotional scaffolding” are the most influential to the low achievers.This study has following implications for senior high school English writing teaching: The results of the study provides senior high school English teachers with more understanding of the relationship between English writing scaffolding and English writing self-concept,suggesting them to consciously provide more types of writing scaffolding in the teaching process,so as to improve students’ English writing self-concept,and ultimately improve students’ writing ability.