On Reconstruction Of The Imbalanced College English Classroom Ecology In The Context Of Informatization

Educational informationization is one of the major strategic focuses of China’sinformatization development and the main path to the educational modernization ofour country. It is also an inexorable trend of the times. The rapid development ofinformation technology has been constantly changing people’s ways of life, work,thinking, and teaching as well. College English teaching, in particular, has beenclosely connected to modern information technology in the recent decade. Computer-network-and classroom-based College English teaching model has been widelyspread across the country and the overall level of College English teaching has gotgreatly enhanced. However, during the function transformation of modern informationtechnology from an instrumental role to a leading role in College English classroomteaching, there arose some urgent problems to be solved.From an interdisciplinary perspective, the study applies ecology theories andsystem science theories to a systemic analysis and in-depth exploration of the CollegeEnglish classroom ecology in the context of informationization by following the basicroute map of discovering, describing, analyzing and solving problems, on the basis ofwhich some methods and measures are put forward to reconstruct the ecologicalequilibrium in College English classroom. To be specific, the present study views theCollege English classroom as a microcosmic educational ecosystem and particularlyanswers four questions:1) What are the structure, functions and features of theCollege English classroom ecology?2) What kinds of imbalance and mismatchesexist in College English classroom ecology in the context of informationization?3)What is the relationship between the ecological imbalance of College Englishclassroom and the application of modern information technology?4) How toreconstruct the College English classroom ecology in the context ofinformationization? The four questions above are step-by-step ones and the answer toa former question lays a research foundation for the latter one. The main ideas of thestudy are as follows:1) The College English classroom has the basic attributes of ecosystem and its basic structure can be simplified to “human beings+ecological classroomenvironment”. Here “human beings” include teachers and students who are theecological classroom subjects;“ecological classroom environment” includes thepre-class environment (physical environment of classroom, backgrounds of teachersand students, teaching media, etc.), in-class environment (teacher-student relationship,student-student relationship, emotions and attitudes of teachers and students, etc.) andafter-class environment (class atmosphere, study style, class rules and regulations,etc.). Classroom subjects and classroom environment interact with each other and thusdetermine the run state of classroom ecosystem. From the perspective of trophicstructure, teachers, as the producers in the ecosystem, impark through classroomenvironment the information (knowledge) that comes from outside of the system orfrom their own creation to students who act as consumers. And at the same time,students also act as the decomposers who digest and absorb the information(knowledge) and give some feedback to teachers through classroom environment. Inthis way, the flow of knowledge and intelligence in the ecosystem gets realized. Itshould be noted that teachers and students, though they’re the ecological subjects, canalso become the environmental factors that affect learners. The complicatedinteraction among teachers, students and classroom environment helps the systemfulfill the functions of optimizing the structure, coordinating the relationships,promoting the evolution, cultivating both learners and teachers ecologically, and thelike.2) After the strong intervention of modern information technology in the CollegeEnglish classroom teaching, the College English classroom ecology that has enjoyed along-term stable state got greatly disturbed. This disturbance resulted in the structuraland functional imbalance of the classroom ecology. The structural imbalance ismainly reflected in the disproportion of and disharmony between system components,and the imbalance of trophic structure within the system. Among them, thedisproportion is mainly embodied as the intensified application of informationtechnology; the disharmony is mainly embodied as the mismatches betweenecological subjects, and the mismatches between information technology and teachers, students, teaching modes, teaching materials, classroom layout, teaching contents,evaluation of teaching, management of teaching, etc.; the imbalance of trophicstructure is mainly embodied in the problems that College English teachers lackopportunities of professional development and that students lack abilities to self-studyand self-construct knowledge. Functional disorder includes the declining ofstructure-optimizing function, the weakening of relation-coordinating function, theslowing-down of system-evolving and promoting function, and the decreasing oftalent-fostering function, which makes the overall functions of ecosystem ineffective.3) The imbalance of College English classroom ecology is closely related to theapplication of information technology. With the information technology changingfrom an external environment factor to an internal and even a leading factor, theoriginally balanced classroom ecology is dragged quickly to the nonlinear area andthe system enters a serious non-equilibrium state in which information technologyfails to lead other internal factors to synchronize along with it. Therefore, no resultantforce forms and no chain reactions occur in the ecosystem, which makes it impossiblefor the disturbed ecosystem to complete its periodic evolution into a dynamicallybalanced structure—dissipative structure, which is thought to be more productive. Inthe off-balance ecosystem, the internal interrelationship becomes disharmonious andcontradictions inside the classroom ecology appear. All these problems gather together,leading to the holism effect which attracts the attention of education authorities at alllevels. In the circle of foreign language teaching, many people begin to reflect on theCollege English teaching objectives, teaching contents, the role of informationtechnology, the effect of self-access online learning, and so on. Thus, the teachingreform enters a plateau phase when many English teachers are puzzling over thereform, the push-forward from the government has been reduced and the pace ofreform has been slowed down. The classroom ecology has been brought back to thelinear area, but it still stays in the non-equilibrium state. How to reconstruct thebalance of classroom ecology and increase the efficiency of classroom teaching? Thishas become an urgent problem left for many foreign language educators to solve. 4) In view of the great advantage of applying information technology to foreignlanguage teaching and the irreversibility of its usage, the reconstruction of CollegeEnglish classroom ecology must be conducted in the context of informationalizationand adhere to the basic strategy of integrating information technology into foreignlanguage teaching scientifically, which is the prerequisite condition for thereconstruction. The present study suggests that in order to reconstruct College Englishclassroom ecology, we must stick to the four principles of being ecological, systemic,human-oriented and effective, optimize classroom ecological structure and functionsand promote ecological restoration of classroom ecology by means of makinginformation technology play a leading role as the dominant factor, controlling thelimiting factors in the classroom ecology, adjusting the ecological niches of classroomecological factors, leading the system components to synchronize with each other,avoiding the flowerpots effect in the construction of classroom environment,reshaping the ecological classroom communication and interaction, restoring theecological functions of informatized classroom, maintaining the flowing-water effectof classroom ecology, etc. In practice, foreign language educators should particularlyattach importance to innovating College English teaching notions, establishing aclassified and hierarchical educational system and curriculum system, constructingmulti-dimensional and interaction-friendly environment, improving teachers’ andstudents’ information literacy, providing three-dimensional teaching resources,adopting flexible teaching methods in different situations, adjusting the roles ofteachers and students, developing equal and harmonious teacher-student relationship,building a pluralistic and multi-directional evaluation system, and finally creating theharmonious, efficient and teacher-student symbiotic classroom ecology.The present study not only extends the development space of classroom research,broadens the research approaches to problems in classroom teaching, but also hasgreat theoretical and practical significance for it promotes the development ofeducational ecology in terms of the application of interdisciplinary theories. The studyis to some extent innovative in such respects as the research perspective, researchobject, theoretical foundation, and the solution to the existing problems. As is known to all, it is impossible for us to be clear about everything to be studied until we havefinished the research. In such respects as research methods, theory application andresearch content, the study still has some limitations that should be noted in futurestudies.