An Empirical Study Of English Grammar Teaching Based On Scaffolding Instruction Model In Senior High Schools

The importance of English grammar teaching is self-explanatory inEnglish teaching. However, how to teach grammar effectively is urgentlyto know by most teachers and scholars. The impression of grammarteaching is always that teachers teach rules and students write down therules and using a lot of exercises to consolidate the learning. Had listenedto some grammar lessons of grade tenth in two senior high schools andread many theses of studies on grammar teaching and the currentsituation, the author found that although there are many various teachingmethods being adopted in modern English teaching, grammar teaching isstill a weak part. The grammar teaching has still been taught bytraditional teaching method and the researches on grammar teaching havenot worked out systematical teaching methods but some scattered ones.With the proceeding of new curriculum reform, the grammar teachingfalls into an embarrassing condition. On one hand, the new curriculumreform requires the cultivation of students’ abilities; on the other hand,the teachers face the pressure from college entrance examination.Therefore, some teachers locate grammar teaching in a wrong place.Some emphasize more on grammar teaching to help students get highscores. However, students feel more tired and confused in the largeamount of exercises. Other teachers respond to the new curriculumreform and design some activities to improve students’ learning in grammar but may lead students to play games instead of learninggrammar well. These phenomena indicate that many teachers still cannotput grammar teaching in right position and some effective teachingmethods for grammar teaching are necessary.The scaffolding instruction is a kind of teaching pattern guided byConstructivism theories. It is different from the traditional one-wayexplaining teaching method. Instead, the scaffolding instruction focuseson teachers guiding students to construct and internalize the knowledgelearned so as to reach higher level of cognition. Concretely, Thescaffolding instruction makes use of some interesting scaffolds to guidestudents to explore grammar rules independently step by step and thenthey can get a conclusion through checking their answers in thecommunication with other group members and with the help of teachers.In this process, the teachers can arouse students’ interest by theinteresting scaffolds to change the tedious atmosphere as well as to givestudents chances to study independently so as to obtain the state ofchanging the roles in class. Meanwhile, students can communicate morewith their group members in the learning process which changes form alonely process to a process drawing on the wisdom of the masses. It ismore beneficial for students. The application of scaffolding instruction isin order to try to solve the many problems existed in grammar teachingand finally achieve that students can study independently with the help of teachers.The thesis aims at exploring the teaching pattern of scaffoldinginstruction and check the validity of scaffolding instruction in Englishgrammar teaching. Therefore, this thesis does an empirical study on samemain problems existed in grammar teaching and the improvement ofscaffolding instruction to these problems which includes: whetherscaffolding instruction can improve students’ interest, independentlearning ability and cooperation ability? Whether scaffolding instructioncan increase students’ grammar test scores? Which kind of students canbenefit more from scaffolding instruction, the higher level or the lowerlevel?In order to check the validity of scaffolding instruction, the authorchooses two classes in grade tenth in a senior high school in Guiyang asexperiment subjects. In the experimental class, the author teaches themgrammar in two units with scaffolding instruction while the traditionalteaching methods are adopted to teach the same units in the controlledclass. After the teaching, questionnaires, post-tests, interviews areemployed to get students’ grammar scores and the opinions of studentsand teachers towards scaffolding instruction.The results indicate that scaffolding instruction can stimulatestudents’ interest to a large extent and can also improve students’independent learning and cooperation ability. The grammar test scores are mostly raised. However, because of the time limit, students with lowerEnglish level can benefit more from scaffolding instruction from theaspect of short term.