An Exploration Of Junior College English Grammar Teaching Mode Under The Guidance Of Constructivism

Grammar teaching has always been one of the most controversial aspects of language teaching, and it is least understood. English grammar teaching has once been in two main dilemmas, one of which is unattractiveness of the traditional grammar teaching. The other dilemma is the neglect of grammar teaching. During some period, especially during the prevalence of communicative approach, English teaching focuses mainly on training of verbal communication, and the accuracy of language usage is almost neglected. How to innovate English grammar teaching approaches and promote learning efficiency and interests effectively is a big problem facing the numerous teachers and researchers.Constructivism, a recently emergent theory of knowledge and knowing, take root in philosophy and psychology and get its popularity in educational world at present. According to constuctivist learning theory, learning is achieved through getting others’ help in a certain social and cultural background, with the usage of necessary learning materials, and constructing meanings through way learners get, rather than simply transferred from instructors to learners. The meaning construction is partly an exploration of new experience/information, and partly a restructuring of the old experience/information. The constructivist learning theory emphasizes the facilitation of students’ subjective initiative, and the cultivation of students’ critical thinking and innovation abilities.Hereby, a new grammar teaching mode based on the constructivist theory is practiced and tested in the actual junior college grammar classrooms by English inversion teaching. The new teaching mode is composed of before-class, in-class and after-class activities. Before class, heterogeneity grouping is made, teaching goals are setted and teaching materials are selected. In class activities, which are organized in accordance with internal goal-orientation demands, are organized by a cyclical approach of “engagement, exploration, cooperation, conversation, reflection and evaluation”. After-class activities are mainly summaries and feed-backs from teachers. The research data, which are collected by questionnaire, pre-test, post-test and interviews and to test the feasibility and effectiveness of the new teaching mode, are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and SPSS 19.0. The research results show that the new grammar teaching mode under the guidance of constructivism theory is feasible and effective, comparing to the traditional grammar teaching method. Students are more willing to construct knowledge and make meanings positively and actively under the guidance of the new mode. Though there are still many limitations regarding to the research, it is a valid try for future English grammar teaching.