A Comparative Study Of Scaffolding In Teacher-Student Interactive Discourse Between Novice And Expert English Teachers From Senior High School

Teacher-student interaction is the most basic and important interactive behavior in the classroom teaching process.The quality of teachers' discourse in interaction directly affects the development of second language acquisition,and the efficiency of classroom teaching.In recent years,the “scaffolding” theory,based on sociocultural theory has become a new perspective for many scholars to study teacher-student interactive discourse.With two scales: scaffolding types and scaffolding functions,this study uses scaffolding theory to compare and analyze the dynamic characteristics of teacher-student interactive discourse between novice and expert English teachers from senior high school.At the end of this paper,some suggestions and strategies for senior high school English teachers especially the novice teachers' improvement are put forward according to the findings of the study.Under the theory of social constructivism and related theories of second language acquisition,this study draws on the framework of teacher-student interaction discourse analysis proposed by the Dutch scholar Van de pol.With the self-made classroom observation scale used for quantitative research,the paper combines classroom observation and interviews as two kinds of research methods.In the paper,16 lessons of two novice teachers and two expert teachers from H High School are selected as the study subjects.Firstly,it contrasts and analyzes the distribution of quantity and proportion of the six discourse scaffolding types(questioning scaffolding,feedback scaffolding,instructing scaffolding,hinting scaffolding,explaining scaffolding and modeling scaffolding)and the two scaffolding functions(cognitive function and affective function)between the two kinds of teachers.Combined with the typical cases fragments from four teachers' teaching,this paper analyses the similarities and differences of scaffolding types and functions between the novice teachers and expert teachers in the classroom interaction.Through comparative research,the following conclusions are drawn: 1)The number of classroom interactive discourse scaffolds for novice and expert teachers are basically the same,mainly to achieve cognitive function,but affective attention is insufficient;2)Expert teachers pay more attention to students' emotional needs when setting up modeling scaffolding;3)Expert teachers' discourse scaffoldings pay more attention to language content and meaning,whereas novice teachers' discourse scaffoldings to language forms;4)Expert teachers' scaffolding language forms are richer and more varied than novice teachers';5)Expert teachers can flexibly adjust the scaffolding types,but novice teachers' scaffolding are mostly fixed.In response to these findings,the author proposes the following targeted improvement measures and tactics for the majority of first-line English teachers,especially novice teachers: 1)enhance the affective function of the discourse scaffoldings;2)change the role of the teacher in teaching and take students as the subject for learning;3)improve the quality of teacher's discourse and promote students' second language acquisition;4)adjust the discourse scaffoldings in a timely manner to improve the efficiency of teacher-student interaction.