The Application of Scaffolding Instruction in English Reading Teaching in senior school英语专业毕业论文.doc

The Application of Scaffolding Instruction in English Reading Teaching in senior schoolAbstract :English is an important subject in senior high school. Among the four skills of language learning, reading is the most important. There are specific requirements of class reading and extra-curricular reading in the new National Standard of English Curriculum. Senior high school students are requested to reach a higher level in English reading, but in reality, high school English teaching is faced with many difficulties and problems and the situation of students reading is not satisfactory, which affects students English learning and their interests to a large extent. One of the contributing factors for this phenomenon is traditional teaching mode, which is dominated by teachers explanations. Students accept knowledge passively and their enthusiasm cant be inspired effectively and their learning potential cant be fully tapped. In order to improve the current situation, it is necessary to change the traditional teaching mode, making students the main body of learning. And scaffolding instruction, based on constructive learning concept, is an important teaching method, which takes place within students zone of proximal development. It takes students as the main learning body, and is an innovation to the interaction between teaching and students English reading learning. This paper aims to the application in the English reading teaching in senior high school. Key words : scaffolding instruction, application, English reading teaching 1. Introduction Present Situation of Senior English Reading Teaching The New Senior English Curriculum Standards formulates that students should master four basic language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, reading is one important component that both teachers and students should focus more attention on. And the significance of English is being realized among the high school students, who take great pains to study the language for various purposes, mainly for higher academic achievement or higher scores in the College Entrance Examination. However, in reality, the situation of students reading is not satisfactory, for which there are many contributing factors. On one hand, students have many difficulties in English reading, such as, the insufficient command of vocabulary, the lack of reading skills and strategies, and the lack of interest and motivation. The high school students always complain that learning English is energy- and time-consuming, because they spend a great deal of time in looking up in a dictionary new words they come across while reading. The students have no idea of the reading strategies and skills, believing that reading is something related to knowing about the Chinese meanings of the new words. As a result, some students show a complete lack of interest and motivation in English reading. However, it is fairly well known that reading ability is intimately related to the students interest and motivation in reading. On the other hand, the traditional teaching method is effective in that this method enhances students performances in examinations composed of traditional types of questions and therefore, detailed vocabulary explanation and the analysis of grammatical rules are given more attention to. Then, the teacher are more familiar with traditional teaching mode and thus ignore renewing teaching methods and offering more scientific guidance of reading skills and strategies. In the traditional teaching method, students are just listeners, who accept in a passive way the explanation of the teacher about some grammatical points, translation of the sentences in reading passages and some individual words and phrases that puzzle them. Under the direction of the New Curriculum Standard, it is vital to probe into better design of senior English reading teaching, which has important practical significance to the successful implementation of the New Standard. The teachers should change their traditional conception of reading teaching and apply more scientific teaching approaches to better their reading teaching. And in this aspect the Scaffolding Instruction has great superiority over the traditional reading teaching method. 2. Literature reviewScaffolding is a temporary structure used to support people and material in the construction or repair of buildings and other large structures. In the field of construction and building, scaffolding provides construction workers with space to build and the scaffolding also offers a way for the construction worker to reach work areas which they can not have access by themselves. When the construction is finished, the scaffolding is removed. By the similar understanding, when this term is used in the area of teaching a second or foreign language, it refers to a temporary and adaptable support and the support makes students finish a task successfully “that would be impossible without the scaffolding or to accomplish a task more efficiently or more easily than they could without the scaffolding” (Graves & Graves, 2003). In simple terms, scaffolding is now applied to describe how an instructor can facilitate the learners transition from assisted to independent performance (Berk & Winsler, 1995; Meyer, 1993). Scaffolding Theory was first introduced in the late 1950s by Jerome Bruner, the famous cognitive psychologist. In Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving, the term scaffolding was used as a metaphor to describe a “process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts”(Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976:90). As a teaching strategy, scaffolding instruction derives from Lev Vygotskys sociocultural theory and his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). Its concept is similar to the concept of an expert assisting an apprentice. In teaching, Scaffolding is the helpful interactions between adults and children. It helps the children to do something that they cannot achieve independently. A scaffold is a temporary framework to give support and then it is taken away after the children have learned how to complete the task on their own. The tutor constructs scaffolds not to change the difficult task into an easier one, but to help the students learn how to complete the task independently gradually. With the progress of the children, Vygotsky claims that teachers must act as scaffolds: they must offer just enough guidance to allow the children to advance independently (Byrnes, 2001:37). Scaffolding instruction includes a wide variety of strategies, including:1. activating prior knowledge2. offering a motivational context to pique student interest or curiosity in the subject at hand3. breaking a complex task into easier, more "doable" steps to facilitate student achievement4. showing students an example of the desired outcome before they complete the task5. modeling the thought process for students through "think aloud" talk6. offering hints or partial solutions to problems7. using verbal cues to prompt student answers8. teaching students chants or mnemonic devices to ease memorization of key facts or procedures9. facilitating student engagement and participation10. displaying a historical timeline to offer a context for learning11. using graphic organizers to offer a visual framework for assimilating new information12. teaching key vocabulary terms before reading13. guiding the students in making predictions for what they expect will occur in a story, experiment, or other course of action14. asking questions while reading to encourage deeper investigation of concepts15. suggesting possible strategies for the students to use during independent practice16. modeling an activity for the students before they are asked to complete the same or similar activity17. asking students to contribute their own experiences that relate to the subject at hand3. Procedures of Scaffolding Instruction Scaffolding instruction is an important teaching method which takes the students as the main body. It provides learners with a conceptual framework to help them have a better understanding of the knowledge. The concept of the framework is needed for learners to study further. It is a process to help the learner achieve more than he can independently do. The teachers give students suitable support until the learners can apply new skills and strategies on their own. With the assistance of sufficient scaffolding the learners can study effectively and independently. Scaffolding instruction sets conceptual framework, encourages independent exploration, co-operative learning and effective assessment. Basic procedures of scaffolding teaching is shown as follows: 1) Providing Scaffolds To provide proper scaffolds teachers should first have a basic understanding of the students starting point. On this basis, scaffolds about students current study subject within their ZPD can be built up by teachers. Once it has been achieved, a new task that is beyond students present ability can be presented to students and completed with teachers help. The support includes modeling, cues, such prompts as “What do you want to do first, then, next, and last?” or “What other tools will you need to complete the new task?” The support can also be encouraging words to help students use prior knowledge, and it can be resources such as dictionaries, references materials, resources from the Internet, direct instructions and so on. Providing scaffolds are activities that motivate students interest and are related to the new task. It simplifies the task to make students have ability to deal with it and achieve it. It helps reduce students frustration and focus their attention on how to achieve it with the direction of scaffolding and eventually develop students abilities to a higher level and achieve the construction of the new knowledge. 2) Entering the Situation Constructive Learning Theory believes that learners achieve meaning construction of the new knowledge through continuous learning activities of assimilation and accommodation. The Cognitivism believes that learners construct their cognition structure and urge the development of cognition in the process of assimilation and accommodation to the environment. This enables students to link their experience with original cognition structure to acquire new knowledge. Successful English classroom teaching should establish more vivid introductory situation to give students more chances to apply language materials that they have learned. In English reading teaching, the most effective way of establishing situations is using the methods of asking questions. The questions should be related to the situation and the basis of answering the questions. Teachers should be good at guiding students to find out problems, analyzing problems and solve problems to gradually master the way of thinking and exploring. What teachers should do is to try to create positive atmosphere to arouse students curiosity and interest in English reading. So the key to effective English reading teaching is creating appropriate teaching situation. Performances, stories, songs, pictures, video and multimedia technology that are related to the teaching content can also be used to lead students into the problem solving situation. When students continuously get to have a better understanding of the new knowledge, scaffolding should be adjusted appropriately and removed timely to make students complete the tasks on their own gradually. 3) Independent Exploration Constructive learning theory believes that learning is not a simple passive process that teachers impart new knowledge to students but a process that students construct knowledge by themselves. In this process, students accept information positively and then understand and code it on the base of their prior knowledge to construct their own understanding about the new knowledge. Independent exploration is the key link of scaffolding instruction. With the guidance of the teacher, the exploration starts. Teachers should give students enough time, encourage them to explore bravely, allow students to make mistakes, analyze and then learn from the mistakes. Teachers offer scaffolds properly to guide students to solve the problems. For instance, the teacher can instruct them to find key words and related information in the reading materials. To understand is to discover. Students are enabled to produce and create, not only to receive and repeat passively. In the activities, students make new discoveries autonomously guided by the teacher and teachers scaffolds should be reduced gradually to let students explore independently and construct final results through their own research. Finally, students are promoted from lower levels to higher levels in a continuous way. 4) Cooperative Learning As we all know, in the process of learning cooperative learning is an important study pattern. Teachers instruct students to be engaged in cooperative learning. As an example, students can be divided into groups in which students may have the same or different perspectives on the task. There may be conflicts that make students put forward solutions creatively at a higher cognitive level. Students help each other with teachers assistance at a certain degree. It is a step of decreasing the scaffolds offered by teachers. In groups, students talk about the subjects, explain their ideas to others, and learn the facts by heart easily, which makes English learning interesting and effective. They can reduce anxiety, increase motivation, develop skills of communication, build up self-confidence and learn to share with others. Gradually students will know that they can get fun from English reading and English reading may even affect their lives and so they may enjoy it. This stimulates their interest in English learning and that is just what the teachers hope to achieve. 5) Effect evaluation Effect evaluation is an important step in English reading teaching that can not be limited to only the examination of the degree of how students master the knowledge and abilities, but also the contribution to teaching reflection. In English reading, effect evaluation means students reflection on English reading comprehension. It includes: 1) independent learning capability; 2)contributions to cooperation study; 3) the achievement of the knowledge that they are acquiring. The subject of learning is students who play a main role in the learning process. They gather and deal with the information independently. They check whether their English reading comprehension has been satisfactory or not. Then they will adjust their previous plans and make more efforts in learning activities. In short, the subst