A Study On The Scaffolding Functions Of English Teachers' Classroom Feedback In Junior Middle Schools

Teachers' classroom discourse has always been the focus of linguists and second language acquisition researchers.Teacher feedback,as part of teacher discourse,plays a crucial role in classroom teaching.Teacher feedback has built a communicative bridge between teaching and learning,which not only closely affects students' language input and output,but also has significant impact on the development of students' cognition and emotion.In our country,the classroom is the main place for students to learn English,and simultaneously the junior middle school stage is the key period for students to come into contact with English,so teachers' classroom feedback is particularly important in this stage.This thesis takes four Grade eight English teachers from Weixian No.2 Middle School in Xingtai City and 211 students from the four classes they are in charge of as the research subjects,studies the use of teachers' classroom feedback and its scaffolding functions by means of classroom observation,discourse analysis and interview,and endeavors to answer the following three questions:1.What's the current situation of English teachers' classroom feedback in junior middle schools? 2.What is the performance of the scaffolding functions of English teachers' classroom feedback in practical teaching? 3.What are the students' attitudes towards the scaffolding functions of English teachers' classroom feedback?The following conclusions can be drawn through the study: 1.In junior middle school English class,the types of feedback used by teachers are diverse,and the frequency of positive feedback used in teaching is obviously higher than that of corrective feedback.Besides,simple praise and repetition are used more frequently in positive feedback,and explicit correction and elicitation account for a larger proportion of corrective feedback.2.Teacher feedback has linguistic,cognitive and affective scaffolding functions.Teachers demonstrate the linguistic scaffolding function of teacher feedback by providing comprehensible language input,helping students to correct errors and improve the interlanguage,as well as creating opportunities for language output;Teachers exhibit the cognitive scaffolding function of teacher feedback by simplifying the task,marking key pointsand demonstration;Teachers perform the affective scaffolding function of teacher feedback by stimulating students' interest,maintaining the focus and controlling negative emotions.3.Students can experience the three kinds of scaffolding functions of teacher feedback in classroom learning,and believe that teacher feedback produces a profound effect upon their language acquisition,cognitive development and affective development.According to the study results,the author puts forward some suggestions on the use of teacher feedback,and explains the limitations and research prospects of the study.