An Empirical Study On Constructivism-based Inquiry Teaching For College English

Under the background of quality education, the requirement for English teaching modereform is imperative. In the college entrance examination reform, the English exam modealways goes first. In university, the English subject is a compulsory course for students, but inthe classroom teaching, the method of what is called―spoon-feeding‖still exists, and the lackof instructive―teaching‖and active―learning‖comes along. This thesis mainly explores theapplicability and effectiveness of the Inquiry Teaching mode based on the theory ofConstructivism in college English classroom teaching.Through literature review, this paper gives a comprehensive analysis to Inquiry Teaching,which will emphatically elaborate the basic theory of Constructivism from the following twoperspectives---Constructivism theory on learning and Constructivism view of teaching. Thispaper summarizes the effective Inquiry Teaching theory from the explorations of InquiryTeaching mode at home and abroad and highlights the effectiveness of applying thestudents-centered mode combining with the principle of Humanism in the education process. Inreal teaching practice, by combining the theory and practice, and focusing on the currentproblems existing in the college English teaching in terms of teachers, students and technology,the author initiates concrete suggestions in the following four aspects---updating the teachingidea, constructing new classroom teaching mode, building a new network teaching mode, andsetting up an exploratory teaching pattern. In the concrete college English teaching practice theauthor elaborates three design principles of the Inquiry Teaching based on Constructivism—initiative, situational and cooperative.In empirical aspect, the author provides an experimental research design for application ofthe Inquiry Teaching mode based on Constructivism in college English classroom teaching andselects two classes of college students majored in Cultural Industry Management. The authorserves as the same teacher for the experimental class and the controlled one. In the firstsemester, the author adopts the same traditional teaching method in the two classes and in themeantime makes preparations for the Inquiry Teaching mode while during the second semesterthe author conducts the experiment in the experimental class. The number of studentsparticipated in the research is65in total,33in the experimental class and32in the controlledclass. Through questionnaires, experiment, interviews and classroom observation, the author analyzes the behaviors of teaching-learning and examination results. The author summarizes thequestions in the actual teaching activities that should be paid attention to and the actual effectsof the Inquiry Teaching mode. Data analysis illustrates that the experimental class has anobvious improvement than the controlled class in students‘learning interest, learning initiativeand exam scores.This thesis demonstrates the applicability and the effectiveness of the Inquiry Teachingmode based on Constructivism in college English classroom teaching, and this paper elaboratesthe basic theory of Inquiry Teaching and puts forward concrete methods that can be applied incollege English teaching classrooms and at the end of this thesis, further directions about thefuture research are confirmed. It is hoped that this research play a positive role in promoting theconstruction of an efficient and effective college English class.