Research Concerning The Effects Of Scaffolding Instruction On Junior Middle School Students' English Reading Scores And Learner Autonomy

As is known to all,reading is one of the essential skills in English learning,and it is also a vital part of comprehensive competence in English study.The English Curriculum Standards for junior middle schools have put forward higher requirements for English reading.However,the current status of English reading instruction is not satisfying.For one thing,in China,the traditional teacher-oriented teaching mode still occupies the dominant position in English reading class.Teachers just translate English passages into Chinese mechanically when students read in English,and then teachers check answers quickly when students finish their reading exercise.For another,the educational environment is controlled by examination-oriented education system,causing that students' reading purpose is only to get high marks,not to develop their reading abilities.Furthermore,students are not interested in English reading,and they finish an unlimited a large number of reading tasks and meaningless tests perfunctorily.Thus,the author wants to find a more effective way to change the current situation of English reading instruction in order to improve students' English reading scores and Learner Autonomy.In this study,scaffolding instruction can be described as an educational approach based on Vygotsky's zone of proximal development and Piaget's constructivism.Among the theories in foreign language teaching,scaffolding instruction is a kind of suitable method for English reading teaching,which helps students to connect the new knowledge with their existing knowledge.This empirical study aims to confirm the effectiveness of scaffolding instruction in the application of junior middle school students' English reading scores and Learner Autonomy.Therefore,this study brings scaffolding instruction into English reading teaching in junior middle school,and makes a comparison between the scaffolding instruction and traditional instruction.Before the beginning of this study,the author reviews a lot of relevant literature and research about various aspects of scaffolding instruction at home and abroad.It is found that there are not many studies on English reading teaching in junior middle school,as well as so little about Learner Autonomy.According to the author's own teaching and previous research,investigating the effects of scaffolding instruction for junior middle school students is significant.In this study,the author utilizes triangulation,so both the quantitative research method and qualitative research method are combined to verify the effectiveness of the application of scaffolding instruction.This study comprises the methods of experiment,scale-based testing and the semi-structured interview,which undertake a quasi-experimental design of pretest-posttest comparison group.Eighty-nine students from two classes of Ganli Junior Middle School which is situated in Shenzhen,Guangdong Province are selected as experimental subjects.The two classes are considered as the control class(CC)and experimental class(EC)respectively.Class 3 Grade Eight with 45 students is labeled as the experimental class which is taught with the scaffolding instruction.Class 4 Grade Eight with 44 students is labeled as the control class which is taught with the traditional instruction.From March to July in 2018,the author conducts a four-month teaching experiment.Besides,a widely-used psychological scale named Middle School Student's Learner Autonomy Scale is used to collect data on the dependent variable of Learner Autonomy before and after the teaching experiment.SPSS17.is used to analyze the data of reading scores and scales from the pretest and posttest in the two classes.In addition,NVivo10 is used to find quantitative results which are from the semi-structured interview.The final results are shown as follows:1.According to the results of data analysis,scaffolding instruction has significantly improved the students' English reading scores in the experimental class.According to the results of interview,interviewees at different levels have improved their reading ability to some extent in scaffolding instruction,especially,the medium-level students have made great progress in the English reading ability and scores.2.According to the results of data analysis,scaffolding instruction has significantly improved students' Learner Autonomy.The improvement of students' Learner Autonomy is mainly due to the improvement of these two dimensions:The Independence of Study Content and Time Management.According to the results of interview,students state that their improvement of Learner Autonomy is mainly attributed to the improvement of Independence in Study Content,Time Management and Control over the Study environment.3.Through analyzing the correlation between English reading scores and scores of the Middle School Student's Learner Autonomy Scale in the posttest,it is concluded that there is a significant correlation between reading scores and Learner Autonomy.So,Learner Autonomy influences English reading scores in the experimental class.