An Application Of Scaffolding Theory To Teaching English Writing Of Topic Composition In Junior Middle School

Writing is one of the important skills of English in junior middle school,which occupies a large proportion in learning English. While many students are afraid of it and some even contradict it. When they are writing topic composition, they can't express their own opinions precisely. The level of writing can't be improved. In order to change the current situation of teaching students to write topic composition, the author proposes to apply scaffolding theory into teaching English topic composition.In the process of doing research, the author searches for the literature of scaffolding and concludes the definitions, related theories and applications at home and abroad. Two questions of research have been raised. Firstly, after applying scaffolding theory into teaching topic composition in junior middle school, can students' interest of writing be improved? Secondly, can students' ability of writing topic composition be improved? Then the author selects the junior two middle school students as research subjects. There is one class each week and one topic needs two weeks to finish it. The process of experiment lasts for 16 weeks. The teacher chooses appropriate topics for students and makes teaching design carefully before the class. Students are the center and the teacher plays a role of organizing, guiding, and prompting.There are five basic teaching steps, set up scaffolding, create situation,explore independently, learn cooperatively and evaluate effectively. The teacher sets up scaffolding by making good use of situation, cooperation, and communication. Students are more active and interested in writing. When the students can write by themselves, the teacher should withdraw the scaffolding properly. At last, the students can reach the goal of constructing knowledge by themselves. The author chooses the pre-test, post-test and questionnaire as instruments, and uses the software of Statistical Product and Service Solutions17.0 to analyze the result of tests to check whether the writing ability has been improved. The result of questionnaire indicates whether the students' interest of writing has been improved.After the analysis of data of experiment, the author finds that students' grades in experimental class have been improved compared with those in the control class. What's more, they are more interested in writing because of application of scaffolding theory to teaching English writing of topic composition in junior middle school. The author hopes the research can be beneficial for the teaching of English topic composition. To be honest, there are some limitations to be improved, and more in-depth study should be advocated in the future research.