The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction On Reducing English Writing Anxiety Of Senior High School Students

Senior high school students experience high English writing anxiety in the process of English writing,which directly affects the improvement of students' English writing ability.Originating from Constructivism and the Zone of Proximal Development Theory,scaffolding instruction believes that with the help of “scaffolds”,learners' self-confidence can be improved and the learning tasks can be completed.It is obvious that scaffolding instruction can promote the completion of the learning tasks by affecting learners' emotional state.This research attempts to apply scaffolding instruction to senior high school English writing teaching,to study how it reduces senior high school students' English writing anxiety,and to further explore how the decrease of senior high school students' English writing anxiety promotes the improvement of senior high school students' English writing ability.This research selects two classes in the first grade in Fangcheng No.5.Senior High School.Class 9 is the experimental class and class 10 is the control class.The control class is adopted the product approach focusing on the writing outcomes.The scaffolding instruction(set up scaffolds,enter the scene,explore independently,learning collaboratively,and evaluation),which pays more attention to students' emotional state in the process of learning,is adopted in the experimental class.The Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory(SLWAI),compiled by Guo Yan and Qin Xiaoqing in 2010,divides English writing anxiety into four factors: self-confidence anxiety,conceiving anxiety,classroom performance anxiety and avoidance behavior.This study uses this inventory and senior high school English writing tests to obtain the experimental data.Through SPSS19.0 paired sample analysis before and after the experiment,the research draws the following conclusions:(1)Scaffolding instruction can effectively reduce the overall anxiety,self-confidence anxiety,conceiving anxiety and classroom performance anxiety of senior high school students in English writing,but has little influence on avoidance behavior.(2)The reduction of senior high school students' anxiety in English writing can improve their ability of writing conception and logical expression,but has little influence on senior high school students' ability of vocabulary spelling and grammar use.This research also finds that scaffolding instruction improves students' writing interest and attitude,which proves that scaffolding instruction is effective.Therefore,scaffolding instruction is of significance in promoting the development of senior high school students' English writing teaching.