The Application Of Scaffolding Theory To English Writing Teaching In Senior High Schools

English writing, as one of the English basic skills and the evidence of students' integrated language competence, plays an important role in English learning. However, in practical English teaching of senior high school, writing is a weak point. Nowadays, the New Curriculum set up higher requirements for students' English writing skills in senior high school, and English writing teaching is also facing new challenges. Thus, to improve teachers' teaching ability and students' writing ability has become a necessity. Given this, many researchers try to introduce new theories and new teaching methods into English writing teaching in senior high school, of which Scaffolding Instruction is an important one. Scaffolding Instruction, as the core concept of teaching modes under the theory of Constructivism, pays a special attention to the learning process and emphasizes that students are the center of teaching. This thesis attempts to explore how to apply Scaffolding Instruction to senior high school English writing class and whether this teaching mode has positive influence on students' writing attitude, writing emotion and writing ability, thus putting forward some feasible suggestions to current English writing teaching in senior high school.This study firstly reviews some relevant literatures of Scaffolding Instruction at home and abroad, and then summarizes several application steps of Scaffolding Instruction in senior high school English writing class on the basis of Constructivism, theory of Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding theory. There are seven steps, including setting up scaffolds and building some connections between new and previous knowledge, creating situations and leading to the theme, learning collaboratively by brainstorming, learning writing strategies, giving writing topic and guiding outline, exploring independently and writing first draft and lastly setting up scaffolds of evaluation. Then, two parallel classes in Grade 2 from the Attached Senior School of Shandong Normal University were selected as control class and experiment class and a teaching experiment was performed in experiment class for 2 months. This study adopts a variety of research methods, including questionnaire, experiment, feedback questionnaire and interview. In terms of the aims of this study, the author analyzes the differences of two questionnaires which are delivered in experiment class before and after experiment, then analyzes students' attitude and writing test results of two different classes, and has a final analysis about feedback questionnaire and small-scale interview in experiment class.The study shows that Scaffolding Instruction in English writing class can motivate high school students' writing interest, change their study attitudes. It is also beneficial to good writing thinking and writing habit, thus improving writing ability. Meanwhile, Scaffolding Instruction in English writing class can, to some degree, help students improve writing scores, which is proved to have great effectiveness and feasibility. Based on this, the author finally summarizes several questions when applying Scaffolding Instruction in English writing class and puts forward some suggestions for teachers. It is also expected that the thesis is of some reference value to the English writing teaching practice in senior high school.