The Application Of Scaffolding Instructional Model Into English Writing In Junior High School

With the increasingly rapid globalization,English as an international language is becoming consolidated day by day.Thus,English writing is becoming a very important skill in English teaching and learning in junior high schools.Under the influence of the traditional teaching concepts,there are a lot of disadvantages in the writing teaching in junior high schools,namely inadequate attention from the relevant teaching management,teachers? old teaching approaches and conceptions,and the existence of some irresponsive teachers who neglect their necessary and proper guidance by leaving the tasks of writing directly to the students—these defects leading to the following results: the ignorance of students? interest in writing,the suppression of students? writing talents,and the undervaluation of the potentiality of students? imitation,exploration and automatic writing when accompanied by the help from their teachers or peers.Scaffolding Instructional Model,with its origin from Lev Vygotsky?s theory of “Zone of Proximal Development”(ZPD)and with the constructivism as its theoretic teaching basis,can provide a timely and appropriate help for the learners in their learning processes.In the learning process of the class,learners obtain certain help or scaffolds from more capable adults or peers by breaking down a complex task into smaller ones in light of conceptual scaffolds,then completing them step by step,and finally acquiring the ability of automatic performance in the whole process before the help or scaffolds for them are removed properly and the learners move to a further stage.In the research,No.XXX Middle School in Jining District of Ulanqab City is selected to explore the effect of scaffolding instructional model on English writing teaching in junior high schools.The experimental research is designed to illustrate the impact of scaffolding theory on junior high school English writing teaching,the author makes a wish that this teaching method can be applied to teaching activities in the writing class.Therefore,this study is mainly aimed at verifying the application of scaffolding instructional model in English writing teaching in junior high schools and the improvement on students? achievements.The research questions are as follows:1.Can Scaffolding instructional model improve the students? writing performance?2.Can Scaffolding instructional model improve the students? awareness of using writing strategies?3.Can Scaffolding instructional model improve the students? cooperative learning awareness ?Class 3 and Class 6 in Junior Grade 9 were randomly chosen as the experimental class and the control class.The number of each class is fifty.The whole teaching duration of 16 weeks is divided into three stages—collecting information,teaching activities and evaluation.During which,the scaffolding teaching model is chosen to use in the experimental class while the traditional teaching method is regarded as the main method in the control class on the condition that teachers,teaching materials and courses in two classes are completely the same.The research instruments used in the study include written tests(pre-test and post-test),interviews and questionnaires,and the statistical and analytical tool for analyses is SPSS20.0.The pre-test results show that there is no significant difference in writing levels between the two classes whereas the post-test results show that the traditional writing method has no significant impact on promoting the improvement of students? writing performance.However,it is found in the experimental attempt that the scaffolding teaching method can effectively improve students? writing performance since it is shown that via the data analyses of questionnaires and interviews,the students? awareness of using writing strategies and awareness of learning cooperatively can be obviously improved through the scaffolding instruction.Finally,students from the experimental class have a positive attitude towards the scaffolding teaching approach that students? writing enthusiasm and writing interest have been greatly stimulated.The author would like to get the result that the conclusions of this study can be helpful for the English writing teaching in junior high schools in Ulanqab.Finally,this paper not only dilates the implications and advice for this future study but also manifests the limitations of this study.