An Exploration On Peer Scaffolding In Group Interaction Of College English Classes

Traditional language teaching focused on the observation of second language learning phenomenon, and teachers' “speaking” as well as students' “listening” were strongly emphasized, resulting in the separation of the language learning and language application. Since the 1990 s, a number of researchers have turned to the study of second language acquisition and language teaching from the perspectives of the Socio-cultural theory. Socio-cultural theory emphasizes the process of interactive dialogue and the co-construction of language. The co-construction of knowledge and culture are mediated through language and social activities, for the premise of the theory is that learning first occurred through the interaction of novice and experts, and by co-construction, learners gradually internalize the development of individual cognition as well as self-development.In order to explore the current situation of peer scaffolding in small groups among College English classes, this research takes the Socio-cultural theory as the framework. Altogether, 60 freshmen of non-English majors in two classes participated in this research, and they were divided into 14 groups of four and 2 groups of two. By collecting the recordings of 16 groups' dialogues as well as after-class interviews, this paper aims to delve the current situations of peer scaffolding in small group interaction among College English classrooms and the specific aspects of peer scaffolding.Through the transcription and analysis of recordings of interactive dialogues in each group, the research indicate that(1) on the overall level, peer scaffolding exists among peers in group work in College English classes, and group members can assist each other to deal with the problems they meet;(2) peer scaffolding involves two general aspects: they are respectively development in language knowledge and emotional support; specifically speaking, development in language knowledge involves six aspects and they are: involving participation, providing opinions, providing words and expressions, correcting false expressions, explaining to simplify tasks, task maintenance; while emotional support involves only one aspect, and that is frustration control. The one to one interview after class also proved the efficiency of peer scaffolding, but although most students acknowledged the assistance that peers bring, still some students argued that due to the limitation of second language learners, there are still some shortage of peer scaffolding. This paper emphasizes the positive effect that peer scaffolding played in developing interactive dialogue as well as group members' language proficiency. The paper aims to provide some teaching implications for College English teachings, but there are still some limitations in this research due to the limited research subjects and research time.