Multimedia English Scaffolding Instruction In Senior English Teaching

Multimedia English Scaffolding Instruction (MESI) is using scaffolding instruction in computer assisted English teaching. The concept of scaffolding (Bruner, 1975) is based on the work of Vygotsky, who proposed that with an adult's assistance, children could accomplish tasks that they ordinarily could not perform independently. There are five processes (Establish a shared goal, Provide tailored assistance, Individual pursuit of the goal, group work and evaluation ) and four essential elements (environment, cooperation, conversation and conceptual framework) in it. It is a teaching strategy, in which, with the help of multimedia, the instructor initially provides extensive instructional support, or scaffolding, to continually assist the students in building their understanding of new content and process. Then the learners are directed to explore for themselves, to cooperate with each other and at last internalize the content and / or process. Once the students internalize the content and/or process, they assume full responsibility for controlling the progress of a given task. The temporary scaffolding provided by the instructor is removed to reveal the impressive permanent structure of student understanding. In the strategy, multimedia is efficiently used in senior English teaching. It is helpful to learners' learning ability and to improve their English. In order to study this teaching strategy, I made some experiments in which I gave the students pre-test, while- test and post- test. The results are processedusing Spss10.0. Two years' experiment proved that, firstly, by using scaffolded instruction, students' learning skills can be developed greatly, which leads to the improvement in their academic performance. Secondly, it has greater effect on girls than on boys in term of their learning achievements. Thirdly, students' abilities of listening, speaking, writing, memorizing and judging can be greatly improved, but there is no obvious effect on their reading. From the above point, we can see that Multimedia English Scaffolding Instruction is one of the valuable teaching modes available to the Senior Middle English teachers in China.