The Study Of Scaffolding Construction In Teacher-Student Interaction Discourse In Junior High English Classrooms

As the main approach to classroom communication for teachers and students,teacher-student interaction discourse has a direct impact on teachers' teaching and students' learning.Because of this reason,many scholars thoroughly discuss the vilidity of teacher-student interaction discourse,most of which are from a cognitive perspective.In recent years,with an increasing number of related researches carried out from Sociocultural Theory,scaffolding has become a new perspective of the researches of teacher-student interaction discourse.This research analysises the process of English teachers' scaffolding construction in teacher-student interaction discourse in junior high schools from two scales: scaffolding means and scaffolding intentions,and it gives some suggestions on the problems appeared in the process.It focuses on two questions of teacher-student interaction discourse.Firstly,it is to investigate the distribution of different scaffolding means constructed by English teachers in junior high schools.Secondly,it is to analysis the distribution of different scaffolding intentions constructed by English teachers in junior high schools.The paper refers to Van de Pol's Framework for Analysis of Scaffolding Strategies in Teacher-Student Interaction Discourse.In research methods,it tries to combine quantitative research with qualitative research methods.Quantitative research is to count up the numbers and proportions of six scaffolding means which include questioning scaffolding,feedback scaffolding,hinting scaffolding,instructing scaffolding,explaining scaffolding,modeling scaffolding,and two scaffolding intentions which include cognitive intention and affective intention constructed by English teachers,and then to analysis their distributional differences.Qualitative research is to make a deeper analysis of the concrete situations where English teachers use different scaffolding means and scaffolding intentions associated with their teaching practice.The findings shows that distributional differences exist in scaffolding means,specifically the distribution of questioning scaffoldings is the highest,then is feedback scaffoldings',while the distributions of hinting scaffoldings,instructing scaffoldings,explaining scaffoldings are relatively lower,and the distribution of modeling scaffoldings is the lowest;As for their scaffolding intentions,feedback scaffoldings are mainly aimed at affective intention most of whose forms are too simple,while other five scaffolding means are mainly concerned about cognitive intention some of which have a poor effect on students.Based on the results of the research,I put forward some suggestions for English interaction teaching: enhance the affective encouragement in feedback scaffolding;Pay attention to students' harmonious development in cognition and affection;Construct different scaffoldings in accordance with students' cognitive features;Timely adjust scaffoldings' numbers and degree of difficulty;Improve English teachers' interaction ability in class teaching.