An Empirical Study On The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction Model To Senior English Reading Teaching

It is self-evident that English reading comprehension plays an important role in senior high English teaching and reading,and the key to optimize students' English learning is to further make students fully exploit their learning potentials to form the effective learning strategies and improve autonomous learning ability by actively participating in observation,experience and exploration(He Anping,2015).However,at present,the traditional teaching methods of reading comprehension lays much emphasis on imparting linguistic knowledge to students,and ignores the fact that students' language skills and autonomous learning ability should be developed(Cui Gang: 2014).Therefore,on the basis of the five steps of scaffolding teaching and three levels of language,information and thinking reflected by them,the author designed the teaching procedures so as to analyze deeply and improve effectively students' reading comprehension and help cultivate students' autonomous learning consciousness in application of scaffolding instruction approach.The teaching model in this research was based on Zone of Proximal Development and Constructivism Theory.It initiated student-oriented teaching and emphasized the guidance and cooperation between teachers and students.It required students to complete the independent construction of the target knowledge by mainly setting up ‘scaffolding',creating question situation,exploring independently,learning collaboratively and evaluating the effect in teaching practice.The author specifically adopted an empirical study by conducting a ten-week experiment from September,2017 to November,2017 in Grade two of Senior High School.And the data were collected through tests,questionnaires and classroom observation and analyzed with independent samples T-test and paired samples T-test by the Statistical Package for the Social Science(SPSS)program(Version 17.0).The thesis aimed to explore three research questions as follows:1.Can students' English reading strategies be fostered and improved via application of scaffolding instruction?2.Would the application of scaffolding instruction cultivate students' autonomous learning ability?3.Can the application of scaffolding instruction help to improve students' English reading comprehension performance?The conclusion was drawn by the research that students would effectively improve their reading comprehension performance and cultivate their reading strategies and autonomous learning ability via the application of scaffolding instruction approach.Moreover,it further proved the feasibility and effectiveness of scaffolding teaching,and it is also a popular teaching method for students.