A Study On The Appropriateness Of Senior High School English Teacher Verbal Feedback Under Scaffolding Approach

Allwright(1984)and Ellis(1994)hold that teachers' classroom discourse is “the essence of language,teaching and learning is a process of interpersonal communication”.Thus,teacher feedback,as a bridge between teaching and learning,has been the focus attention of more and more teachers and scholars.The new English Curriculum Criterion of Compulsory Education(2011 edition)clearly illustrates that English curriculum should face all the students and be student-centered.Although,many researchers put too much emphasis on the importance of teacher feedback,however,there are still many problems of current studies.For example,most studies mainly involve in theoretical analysis,and in practice,teachers do not have the awareness of using teacher feedback.As a result,most teachers lack the knowledge of the appropriateness of scaffolding feedback.At the same time,most studies are targeted at college or junior middle school,while teacher feedback in senior high school has been got little attention.Hence,this paper focuses on teacher feedback in senior high school.It tries to explore the appropriateness of scaffolding functions of teacher feedback in NO.12 Senior High School of Wuhou district in Chengdu.This paper takes Krashen's input and affective filter hypothesis,Long's interaction hypothesis as the theoretical support.Based on Vygotsky's scaffolding approach,Wood,Bruner and Ross(1976)put forward six scaffolding functions:(1)“Recruiting interest in the task”;(2)“Simplifying the task”;(3)“Maintaining pursuit of the goal”;(4)“Marking critical features and discrepancies between what has been produced and the ideal solution”;(5)“Controlling frustration during problem solving”;(6)“Demonstrating an idealized version of the act to be performed”.All the six functions mainly divide into cognitive scaffolding functions and affective scaffolding functions.Based on these theories,the author intends to analyze the appropriateness of scaffolding functions of different types of teacher feedback from cognitive scaffolding functions and affective scaffolding functions.This thesis means to answer the following four questions: 1.What's the ratio of teachers' evaluative feedback and discoursal feedback in applying scaffolding functions at different English teachers' classes? 2.What are students' attitudes and preferences to scaffolding functions of different types of teacher feedback? 3.What are the scaffolding functions of different types of teacher feedback? 4.What strategies can be used to improve the appropriateness of scaffolding feedback?Through the analysis and discussion of classroom observation,questionnaire and interview,the research results can be summarized as follows: Firstly,different teachers apply scaffolding functions of feedback differently.The ratio of teachers' evaluative feedback and discoursal feedback in applying scaffolding functions is 70.4% and 29.6% respectively,and it may reflect teachers' different teaching theories.As a result,the teacher should always reflect on their own teaching theory and teaching practice to improve the appropriateness of scaffolding feedback.Secondly,different students hold different attitudes and preferences to scaffolding functions of different types of teacher feedback.More than 80% of students hold that scaffolding function of teacher feedback is important for their language learning.As for scaffolding function of evaluative feedback,students would like to positive feedback more,especially for the personal and specific appropriateness of scaffolding feedback.As for the negative feedback,students expect teachers could provide the right answers in a euphemistic way while the explicit correction should be avoided.As for scaffolding function of discoursal feedback,students expect that teachers can organize all kinds of communication activities to make interactions with others.Therefore,when the teacher provides scaffolding function of feedback,they need to take the students' needs and emotions into full consideration and provide “student-centered” feedback based on teaching practice.Thirdly,the evaluative feedback mainly plays the cognitive scaffolding functions and the discoursal feedback mainly plays the afffective scaffolding functions.It can be concluded that evaluative feedback and discoursal feedback provide complementary scaffolding functions.As a result,teachers should make full use of evaluative feedback and discoursal feedback sensitively and appropriately in the real situations.Finally,there are some strategies to improve the appropriateness of scaffolding feedback.(1)More attentions should be paid for teachers on the student-centered class and how to create a student-centered learning atmosphere.(2)Teachers should provide feedback with politeness strategies and avoid giving some formalism feedback.(3)Teachers should provide negative feedback technically and appropriately,avoiding giving negative feedback directly.(4)Teachers should often reflect on their own teaching theories and experience to improve their appropriateness of scaffolding feedback.