The Application Of Scaffolding Instruction To English Writing Teaching In Senior High School

For Chinese students,learning English from an early age is a common occurrence.However,after learning English for a long time,they still cannot master this language.It is known to us that the key to English learning is to grasp listening,speaking,reading and writing.Among these,writing seems to become the weakest part in the English study.English writing is often neglected especially in the absence of specialized writing courses.For decades,students have got used to just listening to teachers.It is often the case that students are busy at memorizing words and grammar rules.The consequences of this rigid learning are fully reflected in writing.Most students make all kinds of mistakes,from word spelling to sentence structure,even to the main idea of their compositions.In order to improve the current situation of English writing,this study applies the scaffolding instruction to English writing in senior high school.Based on the ZPD(the zone of proximal development),scaffolding instruction first rises from Europe and the United States and continues to develop thereafter.The scaffolding instruction puts emphasis on that students' construction of their understandings of knowledge,regarding them as active learners.And teachers need to provide appropriate assistance of scaffolding to help students learn to write step by step.Senior high school students are more enthusiastic and lively,who have broad interests and are less able to keep themselves motivated on tasks they find difficult.As the experimental objects selected in this study are students who just enter the senior high school,they have certain vocabularies,but their grammar is weak and the English comprehensive ability is poor.Therefore,the author uses vocabulary learning as a foothold to improve students' English writings.The benefits of category theory for vocabulary learning have been widely recognized.In this thesis,the foundation of vocabulary learning is category theory,mainly prototype theory and basic level category theory.This study intends to answer the following questions:(1)How is the scaffolding instruction implemented effectively in English writing teaching?(2)In what aspects does the scaffolding instruction have effects on students' writings?This study chooses two classes of the same level in senior one in the High School Affiliated to University of Science & Technology Henan,experimental class and control class respectively.The author carries out a five-month teaching experiment.For the experimental class,the scaffolding instruction will be applied to English writing teaching.While in the control class,traditional teaching is still used.Through literature method,questionnaire,pretest,post-test and SPSS20.0,the author tries to make conclusions of two research questions.The research shows that the scaffolding instruction has certain effects on students' English writing.According to the ZPD and category theory as well as the students' specific situation,the author builds the prototype vocabulary scaffolding and the basic level category vocabulary scaffolding for students.According to the teaching steps of the scaffolding instruction and the students' development,the author makes timely adjustments.After several months of study,students in the experimental class have a larger vocabulary and are able to use these words properly in their compositions,and their scores also improve.