An Analysis Of The Role Of "Stent" In Classroom Discourse Of Senior English Teachers

Teacher talk is a kind of language that is used in classroom teaching process. It’s not only the media of teaching, but also the main source of language input for Chinese EFL learners. It,indeed, plays an important role in the development of learners’ language competence and performance. Therefore, under the education reform background, the kind of and the amount the teacher language input for students becomes a hot topic. However, traditional teaching mode can not meet the social demands on this new type of English professional talents. In order to satisfy our learners’ need, improve the present situation in teaching, and find out a reasonable and effective teaching mode, this study emphatically focused on the discussion of teacher talk and its effect for students’ English learning under the guidance of “scaffolding” theory.This study, based on Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development” theory and Piaget’s“constructivism theory”, has selected two English teachers and the two classes they teach as the research participants from the second grade of a high school in Rongcheng City of Shandong Province. The study, lasting for two months, focused on examining the classroom teaching process of how the teachers building “scaffolding” for students and the effects of the scaffolding on students’ language learning, and analyzing in detail the characteristics of teacher talk, which has its “scaffolding” functions with real teaching cases.The results are shown as follows:(1) the teachers provide scaffolding for students at the different points of penetration, by transmitting knowledge, facilitating language learning activities and cultivating students’ positive affect. But, firstly, the teacher should discover the“Zone of Proximal Development” of students and ascertain the existing level and the potential level of students’ development; secondly, the teacher should create the situations for students,who may learn to explore the problem independently after the guidance; lastly, students may complete the meaning construction of new knowledge through the discussion with teacher.(2)The results also show that the teacher talk with “scaffolding” functions in teaching plays a positive part in our Chinese students’ English learning. Firstly, the teacher talk can help to promote the development of student’s language competence by providing a large amount of comprehensible language input, and promote students’ language performance by creating a beneficial situation for communication to stimulate student’s language output; secondly, teacher talk with effective “scaffolding” can help not only enhance student’s cognitive ability, but also cultivate their independent learning ability; thirdly, it also helps enhance students’ ability to learn autonomously, by stimulating their interest in learning English. All in all, the teacher talk with scaffolding improves the students’ psychological function and knowledge structure, and, in turn,improves English teaching efficiency, therefore enriching teachers’ teaching strategies.This study, of course, has some shortcomings and defects, due to the limitation of objective conditions, such as the short experimental time, the small sample and the narrow experimental range. But, it has achieved the expected results and has proved that teacher talk with “scaffolding”plays a positive role in student’s language development, from the cognitive and emotional perspectives. It also conforms to the concept and requirement of education reform both practically and theoretically. Moreover, this study contributes significantly for further study in the area of teacher talk and “scaffolding” teaching.