Adoption Of Constructivist Theory In Middle School English Teaching Practice

Constructivism has become prevailing in America and Europe since the late 1980s and is brought to the forefront of various academic domains, especially educational sector. Constructivism holds that knowledge is not passively received but built up by the cognizing subject and learning is active construction based on the prior knowledge. This thesis discusses the adoption of constructivist theory in middle school English teaching practice.The body of this thesis contains six chapters. Chapter One begins with the ideas or beliefs of such kinds of theorists as Vica, Kant, Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner in an attempt to probe into its philosophical and psychological origins. Chapter Two introduces six dominating constructivist paradigms. They are social constructivism, radical constructivism, social constructionism, information-processing constructivism, cybernetic system and social-cultural approaches to mediated action. All of them can be embodied into two major strands. They are personal constructivism, which is credited to Jean Piaget, and social' constructivism, which is advocated by Vygotsky. This chapter views constructivism from different angles in order to reveal its perspectives on knowledge, learning and teaching; Chapter Three delineates constructivist perspective on English teaching which declares that language learning is very much environmentally driven and does not substantially depend on innate capabilities. It criticizes behaviourist perspective on language teaching, which tolerates mechanic decontextualized teaching method and holds a different view from Chomsky who claims that the language acquisition device or Universal Grammar (UG) is innate and linguistic competence is determined by the genetic endowment. Chapter Four makes some surveys on current English teaching practice. Based on the study and surveys, we find the traditional teaching system unsatisfying and cannot live up to society'sexpectations and needs for the rapid changing world of the twenty first century. There is a "distance" between English teaching practice and constructivism. We need reform urgently. Chapter Five probes into the compatibility between constructivism and quality-oriented education and the National Curricula in Basic Education. Actually the new turn of basic education reform is based theoretically on constructivism. Thus, the English teaching reform based on constructivism will have a more harmonious and constructivism-friendly academic atmosphere. Chapter Six integrates theory and practice by providing one English teaching model based on constructivism which is easy to operate. It follows five steps: situation-questioning-exploring-cooperating-reflection. This chapter finally illustrates this teaching model by classroom examples.Taken altogether, this thesis reaches the conclusion that constructivism will become the dominating theory in education because it has revealed the nature of learning and clarified the role of the cognizing subject. Adopting teaching method based on constructivist teaching perspective is one of the most feasible means to optimize the English teaching and further the teaching reform.