Research On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction Mode In The Teaching Of English Reading In Junior High School

Reading is an effective way to increase students’ language input.It is a critical component of students’ language acquisition.English reading ability refers to the combination of the ability to analyze the reading materials in detail,the ability to speculate the content in detail,the capacity to speculate the meaning of words,and the competence to perceive the gist of reading.Enhancing students’ English reading ability is a hard nut in English reading teaching.In order to take a deep exploration into this vital issue,the author attempts to adopt a workable and efficacious teaching mode in the practice of the teaching in English reading.This study carried out the experiment in students’ diverse development periods based on their different “zone of proximal development”.The author adopts the scaffolding instruction mode to teach English reading.The aim is to improve the students’ comprehensive English reading ability.In English reading classes,scaffolding instruction consists of five procedures:providing the scaffold by teachers;establishing the situation by teachers;the exploring by students independently;collaborative learning by students and evaluating by teachers and students.In the implementation of these five steps,teachers need to set up different English reading teaching tasks according to the students’ recent development zone,guide students to combine their previous knowledge with their new knowledge,and build up a reading scaffolding for students timely.By carrying out scaffolding instruction approach,it is clear students’ English reading ability was promoted to a great extent.This study is based on Soviet psychologist Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development”,constructivism,and cooperative learning theory.The author chooses research subjects from Nanning Asean High School,Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.The teaching experiment is carried out in experimental class and control class.The author conducts the research with means of questionnaires,tests,interviews,experimental methods and classroom observations.The research concentrates on the application of scaffolding instruction mode in the teaching of English reading in junior high school.It tried to answer the following three questions:(1)Can the scaffolding instruction mode improve the English reading ability of junior high school students?(2)Can the scaffolding instruction mode improve the self-confidence of junior high school students in the English reading class?(3)What are the difficulties in teaching with the scaffolding instruction mode?The research started from October 2019 and ended in January 2020.During the four months of research,the author adopted scaffolding instruction mode to carry out the teaching of English reading and combined teaching cases to scaffolding instruction.The results showed that the scaffolding instruction mode can not only improve students’ English reading ability,but also enhance students’ self-confidence in the reading class,at the same time,it also stimulates students’ potential to actively participate in the learning process and encourage their involving in thinking independently.This instruction mode provides some enlightenment for future English teaching.This paper also points out some limitation of the research.For one thing,the number of participants is not enough,which makes the sample not typical enough.For another,the time of the experiment only lasted for four months,it is too short to probe into the specific truth.