A Survey And Analysis On Status Quo Of Scaffolding In English Teaching In Junior High School

It is an essential research question in English teaching research to help students to learn English. With the development of socio-constructivism in education and the implement of the National English Curriculum Standards (2011), English teaching emphasizes on interactions, collaborations and teachers’and students’induction to learning. Furthermore, classroom discourse plays an important role in it. It determines the efficacy of teacher-student interaction, whether it facilitates students’learning and the internalization to the learnt knowledge and so on. Therefore, how to promote the interactions between teachers and students? How to facilitate students’learning actively? How to induct students’learning? All the questions above are essential in the present learning. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the present status quo of scaffolding in the classroom discourse, for it can find out the reasons for the problem.In recent years, it achieves some progressions in classroom discourse research and a lot of improvements have obtained in scaffolding in English teaching, especially the application of scaffolding. However, from the research at home, the analysis of scaffolding in classroom discourse has got little attention, especially in junior high schools. Therefore, based on the present situation of English teaching and students’ cognitive feature in lower grade, the present thesis analyzes scaffolding in classroom discourse of different English class types based on the theories of classroom discourse and the teaching beliefs from socio-constructivism. It aims to present the factors influencing on the use of scaffolding in classroom discourse and the efficacy of scaffolding in class. Meanwhile, it provides pedagogical suggestions for teachers. The present thesis describes the research background, purposes and significance, and then it shows the previous researches abroad and at home and the key points of the present research based on the theories of classroom discourse, parts of theories from socio-constructivism, and the requirements from the National English Curriculum Standards (2011). The present research applies the combination of qualitative and quantitative method together with the use of survey, questionnaire, video recording and classroom observation. Furthermore, it presents the results of the research questions.From the analysis, it finds that teacher talk and student talk promote students’ positive thinking and autonomous learning. Most of teachers conduct students to learn and help them to construct a good learning habit. Meanwhile, most of the teacher talk are clear and easy to comprehend for students, which helps students to learn language knowledge and the fulfillment of learning tasks. Teachers scaffold students with words and expressions obviously, while students scaffold students with different ideas largely. Scaffoldings from teachers and students function in exampling, bridging, background stimulation mainly. Nevertheless, from the present research, it shows that teachers and students cannot provide students enough scaffolding in class, and teacher talk cannot scaffold students effectively.Based on the research, the present thesis provides several suggestions for teachers in eliciting students’positive thinking and autonomous learning. Teachers, as the facilitator to students’learning, should combine the teaching theories with teaching practices, enlarge the proportion of training of language skills and promote students’ understanding and application to language. Then, teachers should think about whether their talks are clear and efficient or not, whether they provide students the effective scaffolding or not. Furthermore, teachers should scaffold students from both language level and cognition level. In addition, the present thesis has some shortages. Because of the objective reasons, the present research just focuses on the English class in Junior One. Therefore, the future study could enlarge the research objects to get a more representative result. Meanwhile, a multiple research method could make the research results more objective and effective.