An Experiment Research On “Scaffolding Instruction” For English Vocabulary Teaching In Senior High School

As the foundation of language learning,vocabulary plays essential part in language acquisition.Higher requirements are proposed by The New Senior English Curriculum Standard(2017)for senior high school students.It is required that students have to acquire about 4,000 words,and 400 to 500 idioms and phrases.According to the results of pre-test and practical teaching experience in this research,it can be testified that students can not realize the requirements of The New Senior English Curriculum Standard,and students' vocabulary level can not meet the real demands of the present society.Therefore,more attention should be paid in vocabulary teaching and learning.Scaffolding Instruction is a teaching method on the basis of Constructivism and Vygotsky's(1978)Zone of Proximal Development(ZPD)to provide students guidance to construct their own knowledge framework,and it is a learning process designed to promote a deeper level of learning an asynchronous learning.So the research about Scaffolding Instruction teaching method can validate this teaching model in English vocabulary teaching.Based on Scaffolding Instruction,the subjects,taught by the same English teachers,from a senior high school were randomly divided into two parallel classes,which are the experimental class(EC)and the control class(CC).And the following research questions are dealt with:(1)Can Scaffolding Instruction vocabulary teaching method improve English vocabulary level for students in senior high school?(2)What are students' attitudes toward Scaffolding Instruction vocabulary teaching method?This study tests the students' English vocabulary level and attitude before and after the experiment,and then analyzes the data with independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test to analyze data and discuss research questions in the study.The results show that:(1)Scaffolding Instruction can improve senior high school students' English vocabulary level effectively.In terms of English vocabulary level,the scores of post-test after the experiment(t=3.168,P=0.002<0.05)are higher than those of the pre-test scores(t=-1.395,P=0.166 < 0.05).For vocabulary depth,the scores of the post-test(t=-2.165,P=0.033 < 0.05)are also higher than those of the pre-test(t=-0.393,P=0.695 < 0.05).So according to the data,there is significant difference of the scores of students in the two classes,that is,Scaffolding Instructionvocabulary method can improve senior high school students' English vocabulary level.(2)The students have a positive attitude towards Scaffolding Instruction vocabulary method after the experiment.Specifically,after the pre-test and post-test,it is found that the students' vocabulary learning(P=0.000<0.05),vocabulary memorizing(P=0.000 < 0.05),vocabulary reviewing(P=0.000<0.05)and the vocabulary reviewing frequency(0.001<0.05)were improved obviously.In conclusion,this study provides a reference for Scaffolding Instruction,and it a lso has a great significance for practical teaching.So based on the major findings,the study proposes some pedagogical implications for teachers to improve students' Engli sh vocabulary level as follows.Firstly,students' current vocabulary level must be stre ssed.Secondly,various factors should be considered in the construction of scaffolding.Thirdly,the teachers should remove scaffolding appropriately.