A Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Method In Senior High School English Writing Teaching

Writing is a valid manifestation of the students’ comprehensive skills in English learning, the writing teaching in English teaching plays a vital role. The New Standards of English Curriculum Syllabus for Senior High School issued by Ministry of Education in2003 stipulates that “cultivating the preliminary writing ability is one of the goals of English teaching”. However, there are many problems in English writing teaching in senior high school of China, particularly in many local schools in under developed areas.In face of the situation, this study was conducted an empirical study with combination of qualitative and quantitative methods on the basis of the scaffolding instruction in a senior high school, in comparison with the traditional writing teaching mode, and attempted to answer the following study questions:(1) Does the scaffolding instruction provide more help for the senior high school students’ writing than the traditional writing teaching method?(2) What practical effects does scaffolding instruction have in senior high school English writing teaching?(3) Does the use of scaffolding instruction stimulate the students’ interest in writing,especially for the low level students?(4) Do the students change their way of learning under the guidance of scaffolding instruction in writing, and change their opinion on writing?The scaffolding instruction in the present study was taken as the guiding principle. The author not only conducted an empirical research to explore the effects of scaffolding instruction on English writing in a senior high school, but also did pre-test, post-test, closeended questionnaires and open-ended questionnaire in the experimental class and the control class before and after the experiment, and software SPSS was also used to produce the statistical results, and Independent Samples T-Test and Paired Samples T-Test were adopted to treat and analyze the statistical results. The findings of the study are presented as follows:(1) With the application of the scaffolding instruction, the students do improve their writing greatly, and the scaffolding instruction has proved of better help than the traditional(non-scaffolding) teaching method, to help the senior high students to motivate their writing interest gradually;(2) The scaffolding teaching has achieved some effects on senior high school teaching in English writing. Most of the students made great progress in many ways, especially waysin designing and conceiving about their composition before writing. This method is effective to cultivate students’ independence, and improve their confidence in English writing;(3)The scaffolding teaching method inspires and cultivates students’ writing interest,especially for those who were poor at English writing. They have started to show some interest in English writing;(4) Under the guidance of scaffolding instruction in English writing, the students have changed their way of learning, and change their opinions on writing greatly;The research findings indicate that the “scaffolding” theory is of great help to guide the senior high school teachers to teach English writing.