An Action Research On The Effects Of Scaffolding Instruction Upon English Writing Of Senior High-School Students

Writing occupies a decisive position in English language teaching and learning procedure.It is a complex thinking process in which learners’ internalized abilities of language output and thought are evaluated.To a certain degree,writing reflects the comprehensive skills as well as the basic ones of English learning students.However,writing teaching is still a weak link in English teaching at Chinese middle schools,which leads to the insufficiency of writing ability of middle school students.Based on this situation,this thesis attempts to create a different context for writing teaching by combining it with scaffolding instruction.The author hopes to explores the influence of scaffolding instruction to English writing teaching and tries to improve teachers’writing teaching ability and learners’ writing capacity by conducting this research.Therefore,the research questions of the action research are:(1)Can scaffolding instruction in English writing teaching improve students’writing capacity?(2)If it can improve students’ writing capacity,which aspects are improved specifically?Scaffolding instruction insists on the student-centered teaching concept.According to this instruction,teachers assist learners with learning difficulties to construct multiple scaffolds in writing.The scaffolding instruction therefore internalizes the knowledge and skills in writing for students at first and then evacuates these scaffolds gradually to promote learners’ independent writing ability.It will realize the meaning construction on knowledge and skills ultimately.This thesis takes a class of students in a senior high school in Guangzhou as the objects of the study to conduct a two-round action research in English writing teaching.After collecting and analyzing the results of the questionnaire,interviews and writing tests,the conclusions are as follows:(1)Students’ writing proficiency is improved with guidance based on scaffolding instruction.(2)The vocabulary and expressions,logical structures and contents as well as grammatical structures used in participants’ writings are improved with the guidance of teachers based on scaffolding instruction.This study put forward some pedagogical enlightenment for senior high schools’English writing teaching,although there are some limitations,it still can be the reference for future research.