Abstract
Based upon sociocultural theory, this study investigates the dynamics of the teacher’s roles and learner autonomy in the process of scaffolding in teacher-student negotiation of meaning in an EFL classroom. The participants were 25 undergraduate students and a Chinese teacher of English at a university in China. The teacher-student dialogue was the central mechanism mediating the construction of negotiation of meaning and form in language learning. The analysis of classroom discourse and the teacher’s retrospection from an interview illustrated the teacher’s different roles in interaction, where scaffolding acted as a structured pedagogical tool. The study revealed that the learners were afforded assistance to progress from other-regulation to self-regulation, and consequently, the teacher exploited opportunities to enhance learner autonomy in negotiation of spaces for autonomy in classroom teaching. The study has probed into the significance of the teacher’s capacity of controlling scaffolding effectively and generated implications for teacher development and learner training.
About the author
Li Danli is an associate professor in the English Department of Wuhan University.Her research interests include second / foreign language education from sociocultural perspective, bilingual education, and cross-cultural studies.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the teacher and students who took part in the study for their kind support. Gratitude also goes to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their valuable comments on the earlier draft of the paper, as well as the copy editors’ meticulous proofreading and editing of the paper.
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Appendix
Transcription Conventions
| Italics | Italics are employed to cite a word, phrase or sentence originally from the text |
| … | Sequence of dots indicates a short pause within 10 seconds |
| ( ) | Brackets indicate the time of a long pause over 10 seconds |
| Underline | Underlined words mean linguistic choice being focused |
| [ ] | Square brackets enclose paralinguistic transcriptions |
| * | This symbol indicates that the utterance is nonstandard; it is only used when the nature of the utterance cannot be communicated through glossing |
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