基于建构主义理论的高中英语阅读教学

论文总字数：40987字

摘 要

建构主义学习理论认为，学习是学习者进行意义建构的过程，强调学习者的认知主体作用和教师的指导作用。本文阐述了建构主义理论的四要素，即情境、协作、会话和意义建构。本文认为在建构以建构主义理论为指导的英语阅读教学模式过程中，要强调学生的主体地位，我们应坚持合作取向、学习者为中心和内容取向等原则。在英语阅读教学过程中，我们要确定明确的学习目标，善于利用学习材料和多媒体，创建语言学习情景，开展合作学习，对学习过程进行评价和反思，以便提高学生语言能力和自主学习能力。

关键词：英语阅读教学；建构主义；教学策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 The Definition of Reading 2

2.2 Foreign Research in Reading 4

2.3 Domestic Research in Reading 5

3. An Overview of Constructivism 5

3.1 Constructivism 5

3.2 The Constructivist View of Learning 6

3.3 The Constructivist View of Teaching 8

3.4 The Constructivist View of Students 8

3.5 The Constructivist View of Teachers 9

4. Principles of Constructivist Foreign Language Teaching 9

4.1 Cooperation-orientedness 10

4.2 Learner-centredness 10

4.3 Content-orientedness 11

5. Teaching Strategies for Constructivist English Reading 12

5.1 Creative Use of Teaching Materials 12

5.2 Setting Explicit Aims 13

5.3 Establishing Situations 13

5.4 Exploration and Cooperation 14

5.5 Making Use of Multi-media 14

5.6 Evaluation and Reflection of Meaning Construction 15

6. Conclusion 16

Works Cited 17

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of the society, English as an international language is playing an increasingly important role in the international community. So far as English learning is concerned, English reading teaching has been in a very important position in Chinese high school because English reading is a very important skill. Through English reading, students can get a lot of information, master the language knowledge and improve English comprehensive abilities.

According to high school English teaching syllabus, the primary goal is to develop the students’ reading ability. Chinese students studying English as a foreign language, they learn to listen, speak, write and translate through reading. Only through reading can our students learn English without being restricted by time, occasion and place. Without reading, there is no language learning. For this reason, if students want to learn English well, they must read widely. Meanwhile reading has been recognized as the most important way to get information in foreign language learning for a long time, so the teachers and researchers paid a great deal of attention to the fostering of the reading ability.

In traditional English teaching, although teachers paid much attention to English reading teaching, the teaching effect was not ideal. There are many different reasons, for example, students do not adopt right and effective reading strategies and teachers neglect to provide guidance of reading methods for students. Teachers mainly focus on the explanation of vocabulary and language points in class, but ignore students’ interest in reading and reading ability. Students have little time to think independently and communicate with each other, their learning are passive. It can be seen that there is a gap between teaching and learning.

In order to overcome the shortcomings in traditional English reading teaching, we can take a better approach based on constructivism to teaching. Constructivism is an effective guiding ideology of theory and practice. Constructivism emphasizes that the students construct their own knowledge through their own experience and on the basis of their previous knowledge by cooperation and conversation in certain situation. Using this theory can help solve the problems in high school English reading teaching.

Constructivism is one of the most influential theories in the field of modern educational psychology. Exploring the application of constructivism in teaching has become a really hot spot in basic education in China. After the implementation of curriculum reform, high school English reading teaching has been improved to some extent, but on the whole, there are still some problems. Consequently, more and more scholars began to research the approaches based on constructivism to guide English reading teaching. The teaching mode and teaching method which based on constructivism provide a new way of thinking for high school English reading teaching.

This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter one presents an introduction to the background and the significance of the study. Chapter two is literature review which introduces the relevant research about reading comprehension at home and abroad, and also discusses the definition of reading. Chapter three mainly introduces constructivism theory. Chapter four presents the principles of constructivist foreign language teaching. Chapter five suggests some teaching strategies for constructivist English reading. The last part is the conclusion of the paper.

2. Literature Review

2.1 The Definition of Reading

What is reading? What is the essence of reading? Is it just explaining the meaning of the printed words or the process of interactive communication between readers and writers? There are two schools of thought about what reading is. One school considers that the result of reading is more important. It stresses the form and meaning of articles, and believes that reading is just explaining the meaning of words. The second school holds that the process of reading plays a more important role. It puts a greater emphasis on the strategies used during reading articles. In the process of reading, the readers are able to understand what they read by making the use of information they have acquired. Reading mainly involves two factors: one is the readers, the other is articles. The printed words helps the readers understand what the author is trying to say. On the one hand, reading is the cognitive process of brain, and on the other hand, reading is also a way of communication between the reader and the author. The author sends information as the speaker, and the reader receives information as the listener. Reading, as a form of communication, aims to achieve mutual understanding between the reader and the author. When the readers are reading, they need to use their own language and culture background knowledge to interpret the intentions of the author, and accept or reject the thought of the author selectively. As a result, many linguists regarded reading as the process of communication between readers and writers.

According to psychologist Smith (1971) considered that reading is a psychological process, and came up with reading redundant theory for the first time, according to the analysis of the psychological characteristics of readers in the reading process. He states that vision, hearing, syntax and semanteme are the four sources of information, and redundancy as a universal linguistic phenomenon, find their expressions in different aspects of the language such as letters, words, sentences and discourse. So the readers need to use other resources of information to make a better understanding of articles. Psychologist Goodman (1967) regarded reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game. He thought that reading is a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth. He divided the procedure of language understanding into three main types: the process of words, the process of sentences and the process of discourse.

In the most obvious sense, reading is the ability to understand in an article and explain it properly. The interactive process of reading most embodies in two aspects. First of all, the different types of processes involved in reading are carried out contemporaneously. We are analyzing the structure of sentences to have a general idea of the article in our heads while recognizing and remembering words. Reading process is a purposeful process that readers read in different ways based in different purposes. Reading is also a comprehending process. The concept of comprehending is obvious. At the same time, reading is a linguistic process rather than a reasoning process.

2.2 Foreign Research in Reading

With the development of cognitive psychology, pragmatics, artificial intelligence research and information process, some foreign linguists considered that reading based on readers and reading materials, after many years of research. Reading is not only the process of two-way communication and interaction between readers and language information of reading materials, but also the process of communication and exchange between readers and writers.

The process of studying English reading in abroad can be divided into three periods: traditional theory, cognitive theory and schema theory. In the 1960s, bottom-up theory, which has been put forward by Gough, was a systematic summary of traditional view. Gough believes that reading begins with the recognition and understanding of words, and the basis of reading comprehension is to read language symbols correctly. In the 1970s, Goodman put forward top-down theory according to cognitive psychological theory. The process of reading is a continual cycle of recognition, prediction, verification, correction and conclusion. The advantage of this model is that it highlighted the principal role of readers, but the disadvantage is that the role of language knowledge has not received enough attention. Rumdhart came up with interactive reading model which is more advanced. According to this model, the decoding and predicting process of reading can happen at the same time or alternately. And on this basis, a new theory was raised—schema theory. Schema theory holds the view that reading schema can be divided into three different types which contain linguistic schema, content schema and rhetorical schema.

Over the past twenty years, with the development of the study on human learning process, constructivism learning theory as an important branch of cognitive learning theory has become popular gradually in western countries. The major characters of constructivism are J. Piaget, O. Kernberg, R. J. Sternberg, D. Katz and Vygotsky. Student-centered is the essential concept of constructivism. This kind of teaching mode emphasizes on student’s self-study and self-discovery, it also advocates learners construct the meaning from what they have learnt.

2.3 Domestic Research in Reading

In recent years, many domestic scholars have concentrated on the study of constructivism theory, and they focused their studies on the connotation of constructivism, the basic principles of constructivism, teaching mode, etc. Such as: Constructivism Learning Theory and Constructivism Learning Environment written by He Kekang (1996), and Constructivism—The Theoretical Basis of Traditional Teaching Innovation (1998). The Application of Context Learning in Classroom Teaching written by Mao Xinyong (1998), Constructivism and Teaching Design written by Gao Wen. In 2001, a new English Language Curriculum for Senior High School was established in China, which is based on constructivism learning theory. The new curriculum standard advocates take-based teaching method, which means students should complete the learning task by themselves. It is an important reflection of constructivism in English teaching.

More recently, in China, there is a great deal of research on high school English reading teaching. The article The Research of High School Students’ Reading Motivation written by Tao Zhanyong pointed out that English reading motivation of high school students is mainly composed of internal motivation. Han Chengfeng from Central China Normal University explores the relationship between control strategy and students’ English reading ability in Guidance to Students of Using Control Strategy in English Reading. According to Schema Theory and High School English Reading, Wang Gaoqiang made a discussion of how to use schema correctly, and how to developing and enhancing the independent reading competence of students.

All of the research shows that the study of high school English reading teaching is springing up exuberantly.

3. An Overview of Constructivism

3.1 Constructivism

At the end of last century, constructivism, an advanced learning theory, was introduced from the west into our country gradually. However, there was not a definite beginning of constructivism at very first. Because it seems to be no person or organization take the responsibility to develop or lay the foundation for modern constructivism. There is a popular belief that the origins of constructivism can be traced back to Vico, Goodman, Rousseau, Kant, Dewey and Vygotsky. Although these people did not consider themselves as constructivists, their main ideas played an important role in early constructivism.

Basically, constructivism is a combination of ideas of philosophy, psychology, sociology and education. For example, in philosophy, scholars like Derrida, Foucault and Barthes brought in postmodernism and the skeptical attitude towards objectivity. In sociology, Luckmann and Berger supported the opinion that knowledge is actively constructed rather than passively instilled. But in psychology, works like Piaget and Vygotsky, even later Bruner and Glaserfeld, made a great effort to form the early constructivism.

In 1966, the Swiss psychologist Piaget proposed constructivism theory based on the study of children’s cognitive development. He believes that learning is an active process of construction which based on already existing knowledge and experience. This is also the core content of constructivism. Later, Bruner came up the subject structure theory. He concerns that language teaching should attach importance to students’ initiative of study and enforcing functions of learning activities, in addition, language teaching need to put the students as the center of the activity. The Zone of Proximal Development theory found by Vygotsky emphasizes the existing experience of learners in the process of cognition. Developed from this theory, social constructivism researched activity and intermediation. All of these studies further enriched and improved constructivism theory, and eventually formed a comparatively complete theory system.

3.2 The Constructivist View of Learning

Fosnot (1996) believes that constructivist learning is not a description of teaching, it is a method of learning. Constructivist suggests that the most important part of knowledge leaning is the contribution which the students have learned. In terms of constructivist, constructivist learning is mainly our own business. When the students construct new knowledge from the already existing knowledge, their understanding of the world gradually deepens (William and Burden, 2000). For the students, the most important thing is to decide what approaches to adopt to observe the new situation and the world. The perceptions of the students themselves can help a lot in constructing of knowledge learning.

Here are some points of constructivist learning. First of all, emphasizing experiences of the learners. Constructivist learning holds that the previous knowledge which exists in the students’ mind is of great importance, and the prior knowledge is the combination of their own experiences. When the learners meet with the problems that they haven’t met before, they can solve the problems in a logical way with the help of their former experiences. Second, emphasizing the learner-centered learning mode. Constructivist learning thinks that the students are improving their personal understanding of the surrounding world and environment actively. This kind of personal understanding is different from the traditional concepts that consider the learning as accumulation of facts. What is more important is that the teachers can not impose the knowledge to the students. The students should be active participators in the whole process of knowledge learning and meaning construction. By this means, the students can play a central role in the learning mode. The third point is to show respect for the personal experiences. According to the viewpoint of radical constructivism, knowledge is constructed rather than discovered. Knowledge is the result of personal experiences and it does not need to reflect the world. Therefore, constructivist believes that people could not simply judge the views or knowledge of other people. The last but not the least is to put emphasis on interactive learning. Language learning does not mean isolation. The students should learn interactively with their teachers and peers. By interacting with teachers and peers, the students can promote meaning construction and develop cognitive growth.

3.3 The Constructivist View of Teaching

In the field of constructivist teaching, every student should construct their own knowledge individually. Therefore, its fundamental purpose the art of teaching must be to foster the art of learning and the art of teaching has little to do with the transference of knowledge (Glaserfeld, 1995). Besides that, constructivist teaching suggests that there are many correct methods to teach and there may not be just one fixed teaching process. And the main views of constructivist teaching are concluded as follows: (1) regarding the experiences of the students as the starting point; (2) transforming the role of the teachers; (3) creating suitable learning environment; (4) encouraging learners’ reflection; (5) emphasizing cooperative learning.

3.4 The Constructivist View of Students

In terms of constructivist teaching, the most important feature is that the students should be put in the central place (Duffy, 1996). The students change from the passive receivers of knowledge to the active constructors of learning. According to the social educational theory of language learning of Gardner, the method can connect with the students’ attitudes toward the learning environment, the cultural beliefs and integration of the students’, and most importantly their motivation because the motivation is the basic factor (Gardner, 1985). Harmer suggests that the motivation plays an important role because a powerful learning motivation can make the learning and the teaching process more efficient (Harmer, 1998). Constructivist teaching puts emphasis on the motivation too, and it holds the view that different students ought to have different way of motivation.

The students are of great importance in the process of learning. Every student has his or her own background information and personal experiences, and the students should have their own understanding of the situation and the environment. So the learning is personal. The students ought to acquire new knowledge to have a better understanding of the world. For the students, the ideal learning is to establish a knowledge system of their own autonomously. The students should be well aware of their central role in the learning process, and they should deal with the new situation that they have never met by using the knowledge they have already learnt. It is very necessary for the students to know that knowledge is positive learned rather than passive taught, they should be the masters of learning. The students play an active and central role in the teaching process.

3.5 The Constructivist View of Teachers

The most important point in the constructivism teaching method is that the teacher must have a constructivist view. Constructivism holds the view that the teacher plays the role of big supporter, facilitator and supervisor in the process of the students to construct knowledge. The teacher should arouse students’ interest in learning, and stimulate their motivation of learning. The teacher ought to have many abilities, such as planning, making decisions, creating, designing, organizing, analyzing, coordinating, assisting, evaluating, summarizing and so on.

The teacher is the organizer in the process of teaching and plays a leading and guiding role. The teacher should give full play to the role of guiding, and try the best to stimulate the motivation of the students. And in addition, the teacher should help students find out their problems and solve the problems.

The teacher is the discoverer in the process of teaching. As a cooperator of the students, the teacher should pay high attention to the diagnosis and corrections of the students’ fault. They need to encourage the students to learn independently and enhance students’ self-confidence.

The teacher is the broker in the process of learning. The teacher ought to provide the students with the modern knowledge and methods and put emphasis on improving their comprehensive quality.

4. Principles of Constructivist Foreign Language Teaching

The above-mentioned opinions of constructivist theory on the explanation of knowledge, learners and the teaching activities, has actually contains some views of teaching design. In order to clarify these views, some principles based on constructivist epistemology and learning view which can guide the teaching design are given as follow.

4.1 Cooperation-orientedness

Establishing a cooperative situation and encouraging the learners to communicate with each other and learn from each other. Since the knowledge construction of the learners sometimes unavoidably is not comprehensive and biased, the teachers should encourage the students to exchange opinions and learn from each other to form a shared, comprehensive and profound understanding.

All the learning activities should be linked with questions or tasks, and use problems or tasks to drive learning. That is to say, the learning activities should be purposeful and targeted. In essence, the designers or the teachers are asked to organize learning based on tasks or cases, design issues and explore oriented teaching, so that the students can learn with a clear purpose. Therefore, the purpose of completing tasks should be the driving force for the students to learn knowledge and skills, and the practical needs of solving problems will encourage the students to construct knowledge actively.

Associating assessment with activities. Assessment should be a part of teaching rather than being separated from it. The constructivist class assessment includes two kinds of forms: the curriculum assessment and the students’ performance assessment. The teacher should put effort into understanding the thoughts of the students by recognizing the relationships they have constructed

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