Teacher Scaffolding of Higher-Order Thinking in Senior High School EFL Reading Lessons: A Multiple-Case Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Higher-order thinking is an important goal of senior high school English reading instruction, but cognitively demanding questions alone do not necessarily sustain student reasoning. This qualitative multiple-case discourse analysis examines selected teacher–student exchanges from four publicly available demonstration lessons in China. The source materials comprise approximately 222 minutes of classroom transcripts and 17,500 English word tokens. Selected episodes were analyzed using the revised taxonomy of educational objectives and six scaffolding functions, with attention to changes in support and interpretive responsibility. The results reveal three patterns. First, teachers supported analysis by marking textual contrasts and externalizing conceptual structures. Second, probing, requests for evidence, and revoicing extended student responses from identification toward evidence-based interpretation and evaluation. Third, task decomposition and procedural models enabled students to transfer textual understanding to new problems and products. Support shifted from explicit structuring to less directive prompting after students produced more developed responses. However, teachers sometimes resumed control by reformulating contributions or supplying final conceptual summaries, so fading remained partial. Overall, scaffolding sustained higher-order participation when it organized evidence and procedures without removing the central interpretive decision and when students retained responsibility for justification, transfer, and production.