A Studt On Peer Scaffolding In Group Interaction In English Majors' Flipped Classroom

Rooted in the zone of proximal development of sociocultural theory,peer scaffolding has attracted attention of an increasing number of researchers.Most of these studies,however,have been carried out in the traditional teaching model,in which most of class time is used by teachers to lecture.Consequently,the opportunities for students to provide scaffoldings with their peers have been limited in the traditional in-class time.With the development and application of information technology,the flipped classroom has emerged.By its very nature,the flipped classroom provides lots of class time for students to participate in class activities during which peers scaffold each other,and peer scaffolding in interaction is one of important factors influencing learning performance.Thus,this study investigates the types of peer scaffolding in the flipped classroom and compares the appearance frequency of each peer scaffolding type.Furthermore,this survey intends to uncover factors likely to impact peer scaffolding in group interaction in the flipped classroom.This investigation uses a mixed method,integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches with the guidance of sociocultural theory and scaffolding theory.31 English majors who have experienced the flipped teaching model during the research time are involved in this research.It investigates performance of peer scaffolding in group interaction in the flipped classroom with the analysis of recordings of video and audio,and it explores main factors impacting peer scaffolding in the flipped classroom through the analysis of the nine interviewees' responses.Findings from this study indicate that there are eight major types of peer scaffolding in group interaction of the flipped classroom,which are consistent with the prior studies.However,two new subcategories of peer scaffolding are found in this present research,seeking scaffold implicitly with gestures and correcting understanding errors.Then the frequently used scaffoldings are providing opinions and explaining to simplify tasks.The scaffolding of increasing participation ranks the lowest in this present study.Three main possible influencing factors are identified: the flipped nature of the flipped classroom,the higher requirement for pre-class preparation in the flipped classroom and a student-centered feature in the flipped classroom.This present research fills a gap in the literature by investigating peer scaffolding in group interaction in the flipped teaching model.Practically,the results of this study will provide teachers with suggestions to facilitate students to support effective peer scaffolding in the flipped classroom and offer teachers advice to improve the effect of the flipped teaching.