Application Of Scaffolding Instruction To English Writing Teaching In Non-english Major

English writing plays an important role in English study, which also reflects students’comprehensive skills. It is not only good for the improvement of students’ language skills,but also an important way of communication. Therefore, English writing gets more andmore attention. However, there exist many problems in the current college English writingteaching in our country. So how to improve the students’ writing ability and how todevelop the teaching method have become a challenging task.Scaffolding instruction is a teaching strategy based on the constructivism theory,which originates from “the Zone of Proximal Development” put forward by Vygotsky. Thiskind of instruction can help students to plan, carry out and complete their tasks. What’smore, the scaffolding instruction has been widely adopted in western countries. However,there are few empirical studies on scaffolding instruction in China, especially in the aspectof English writing teaching in college. Most related studies are limited in the theoryanalysis. In order to change this situation, motivate students’ interest in English writing, thestudy applies the scaffolding instruction to the teaching of college English writing and triesto answer the three questions:Firstly, what are students’ attitudes and feelings towards scaffolding instruction?Secondly, can the scaffolding instruction improve scores more than the traditionalapproaches to English writing teaching for college non-English majors?Thirdly, if the scaffolding instruction works when it is applied to the teaching ofEnglish writing, which aspects can be improved more obviously?In order to prove whether the scaffolding instruction is effective, the thesis conductsan experiment. The experiment is carried out in two non-English major classes insophomore with30students in each class. One class is named “experimental class”, theother class is called “control class”. In the experimental class, scaffolding instruction isapplied to the English writing teaching, while the control class still uses the traditionalteaching method. Before the experiment, the pre-test paper is used. In the end of theexperiment, the post-test paper is used. The questionnaires and interview are also adoptedin the experimental class to see if the students hold positive attitudes and feelings towardsthe scaffolding instruction. In the process of analyzing the data from the pre-test paper andthe post-test paper, the software SPSS.17.0is adopted. The data from questionnaires andinterview is analyzed. Results show that the scaffolding instruction can improve the scores of the students’English writing, especially in the aspects of “content”,“wording”,“organization”, and“coherence”, while in aspect of “grammar”, there is no significant difference betweenscaffolding instruction and traditional teaching method. The questionnaires and theinterview show that most of the students of experimental class express that they have moreinterest in the English writing after applying the scaffolding instruction to the writing classand they hold positive attitudes and feelings towards the scaffolding instruction.According to the results of this study, the scaffolding instruction can effectivelyimprove students’ English writing ability and students hold positive attitudes and feelingstowards it.