Study On The Tendency Of Interpreting Teaching Toward The Constructivism Paradigm

The field of Interpreting teaching studies as a whole has witnessed great developments in recent years.Many traditional concepts we hold about language teaching are challenged by the development and practices in interpreting teaching. This thesis discusses the implicit assumptions of learning underlying the distinctive features of interpreting teaching.Efforts are made to rethink about the characteristics and changes in interpreting teaching from a mind oriented constructivism perspective.This study,drawing on current insights(e.g.academic journals,books),tries to study the tendency of interpreting teaching toward the constructivism paradigm through a qualitative approach.This research contains mainly two parts.The first part is phenomena coding and the second part involves theoretical analysis and induction. In the first part,after a brief description of the general features of interpreting teaching studies in China,the author describes some distinctive features of interpreting teaching from both external and internal perspective,including external environment--a direct link to market needs and features of interpreting teaching itself --mental-model based teaching etc.In the second part,it's proposed that the fundamental characteristics of constructivism paradigm lie in its focus on the promoting of higher-order thinking and the constructing process of knowledge in learners' mind.Higher order thinking corresponds with the overlapping levels above comprehension in the taxonomy of educational objectives proposed by Bloom, Englehart,etc(1956),featuring analytical and integrative thinking skills.Based on the former phases of this research,the author argues that the learning assumption underlying interpreting teaching practices is that,instead of "mirroring" the external knowledge,people actively construct their own knowledge in authentic environments and "interpret" the world through mental model.It stresses on the importance of subjective thinking.Some features are analyzed from the perspective of constructivism,including a review of three classic pedagogical models and the core of interpreting skills teaching.The author argues that the core of interpreting skills teaching is to promote higher-order thinking.And based on the study,the author attempts to propose a model of interpreting teaching targeting at facilitating the constructing process of higher-order thinking.The teaching model reflects the following features:teaching design revolving around the forming and developing of higher order thinking skills;static knowledge taking on a supportive role instead of being the main content;a recursive and reflective teaching process;learners taking on the major responsibility of learning;open and dynamic learning environment and content.This paper concludes with the limitations of this Study as well as recommendations for future research.