An Experimental Study On Oral English Teaching In Senior High School Based On Scaffolding Instructional Model

Being one of the basic forms of language activities,speaking is the best way to demonstrate one's integrated language ability.Although the task of developing the students' communication competence has been clearly claimed in Ordinary High School English Curriculum Standard,students' speaking ability is still far from expectation because of the strong influence of the traditional teaching method and the exam-valued orientation.Therefore,it is worthwhile finding a new oral English teaching method.Scaffolding instruction model(SIM)as a teaching model originates from Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and his concept of zone of proximal development(ZPD),and is defined as the role of teachers in supporting the learner's development and providing support structures to get to the next stage or level.Providing scaffolds at the ZPD can motive learners to excel beyond their current skills level constantly.Scholars have carried out a numbers of studies of SIM in reading,writing and listening teaching from abroad and at home,but there were few in oral English teaching,particularly in senior high schools.This study attempts to apply SIM to oral English teaching in a senior high school,aiming at(1)exploring the integration between oral English teaching and SIM;(2)providing a new theoretical perspective for oral English teaching in senior high schools.And a teaching experiment was carried out to verify two research questions as follows: 1)Can scaffolding instructional model improve senior high school students' oral English ability? 2)Is scaffolding instructional model helpful for cultivating senior high school students' autonomy of learning oral English?The experiment was conducted in Middle School Affiliated to Guangzhou University from September to December,2016.The 106 subjects came from two key classes of Grade Two,which was taught by the same teacher,the author herself.One class was chosen randomly as the experiment class(EC),which was taught in SIM,and the other is control class(CC),which was taught by the traditional teachingmethod(PPP).Research instruments included tests,questionnaires and an interview.A pre-test in the first week and a post-test in the last week were conducted to test students' oral English ability.The questionnaires were used to investigate students' autonomy of learning oral English in EC.An interview was used to reassure the results and the validity of the questionnaires.The data of the oral tests and the questionnaires was analyzed quantitatively with SPSS 16.0 and the data of the interview was analyzed qualitatively.Data analysis showed that there was significant difference between EC and CC,and also there existed significant difference in EC between pre-test and post-test.Therefore,it can be concluded that SIM is helpful to promote senior high school students' oral English ability and foster their autonomy of learning oral English.It also proves that SIM is a feasible and effective model to teach oral English in senior high schools.