CONSTRUCTIVISM In FLT

In the past few years in China, there has been an increasingly urgent demand of studentsmajoring in English, but the foreign language teaching in China is not efficient enough tomeet this demand. One reason could be the lack of a more efficient teaching theory. We doencounter many teaching theories every day, but none of these theories seem to be able toattract our teachers' attention in the same way as behaviorism, the theory that dominatesforeign language teaching, by which most of our teachers were taught and are currently using.The reason is, we believe, that there is not a coherent psychological theory to support theserecently emergent theories. This dissertation attempts to describe a new learning theory froma psychological and educational perspective."Within the last few years, a distinctly different body of theory has begun to attract theattention of the field of instructional design and development ?constructivism." (Knuth &Cunningham, 1993: 163). Constructivism holds the view that knowledge must be constructedwithin the cognitive structure of every individual; it is flmdamentally personal, and dependenton experiences in the learning environment and on social interactions. It is a theory aboutknowledge and learning, having a radically different definition of what knowing is and howone comes to know. It dislikes behaviorism for its avoidance to refer to meaning,representation and thought, but it also differs from many "pure~~ cognitive approaches in thatit also stresses such concepts as emotions, experience, and interaction. The theory "describesknowledge as temporary, developmental, nonobjective, internally constructed, and sociallyand culturally mediated. Learning from this perspective is viewed as a self-regulatory process52Constructivism in FLTof struggling with the conflict between existing personal models of the world and discrepantnew insights, constructing new representations and models of reality as a humanmeaning-making venture with culturally developed tools and symbols, and further negotiatingsuch meaning cooperative social activity, discourse and debate." (Fosnot 1996: ix).This paper is divided into five chapters.Chapter One is an introduction to why we should choose such a topic. We are trying toemphasize that foreign language teaching in China is in bad need of a coherent, morescientific theoretical underpinning within which the potentially valuable contributions ofdifferent theorists could be put together for the benefit to the practice of language teachers.Chapter Two is a brief summary of learning theories. In this chapter, we have a historicaloverview of various theories of learning that have a message for language teaching, mainlybehaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. We shall investigate the main concepts andsome of the inappropriacies of behaviorism, and survey cognitivism. Then we shall definewhat constructivism is, review its history and recent development. We shall contrast thesetheories now and then in this process.In Chapter Three, we shall first present a constructivist model, with four elements that weconsider to be the key elements of a constructivist learning process, i.e., the teacher, thelearner, the task and the environment. These four elements influence each other and fQrm adynamic equilibrium. Then we shall examine these elements one by one.Chapter Four is concerned with the applications and implications of constructivism inFLT. It is found that constructivism. has a message for language teaching: for example,emphasis should bc placed on the deVelopment of the students' cognitive ability; studentsshould be taught how to learn; they must collaborate and interact with teachers and with eachother; attention should be paid to provide them with innovative environment and authentictas...