Investigation Into Mediated Teaching Of 'Communication' To Non-English Major Graduate Students

Teachers' beliefs about learning and learners will have a profound influence on their teaching regardless of the syllabus or course book they use. However, there may well be mismatch between a teacher's 'espoused theories' and their 'theories – in –action'. To ensure what makes an effective teacher, attention should be directed to how his words and actions may affect the learning outcomes. Mediation takes a different perspective on the learning process and considers what teachers can do to help learners become effective and independent learners by means of mediation. Section Ⅰ and Ⅱ overviewed Mediation Theory and its underlying theories, revealing that Mediation Theory lacks data as to what may affect the effectiveness of mediation , because, so far , only Chin (1990 ) did some further research in mediation and offered practical ways of measuring the importance of each mediational aspect and the performance of each mediational function. Therefore an experiment was carried out, by which it was intended to find out whether updated contents of the learning activities and an emotional positive environment may affect the effectiveness of mediated lessons of ' communication' to non- English major graduate students at Northeast Normal University in the first term of the year 2004 –2005. Section Ⅲ presented the feasibility and significance of research into mediated teaching . The research was feasible because there were whatever was needed in the research : the right teachers , classes, equipment and so on . More important , the research carried great value to teachers of second language as well as to Mediation Theory . Mediation is needed not only in classrooms of a second language , but in classrooms of other subjects as well and it promotes learning by enhancing learner motivation whether learners are self-initiated or not . In this sense , the theoretical underpinnings and practical guidelines for second language teachers derived from the research apply not only to second language teachers but also to teachers of other subjects . In other words , they apply to a much wider range of courses in school . Section Ⅳ stated that much the same mediated lessons of ' communication ' by the same teacher were given to four repeat classes under different learning conditions but not to the control class: one class was provided with both updated contents of learning activities and an emotional positive environment, another two with only updated contents of learning activities or only with an emotional positive environment and the other with neither the updated contents nor an emotional positive environment as far as the four mediated classes are concerned. In the control class, there were not available updated contents of learning activities or an emotional positive environment. Section Ⅳ also stated classroom observation and completion of questionnaires were the way of data collection . Section Ⅴ presented the following data: (1) the teacher did not mediate in the control class but effectively in the other classes although she considered mediation as particularly important ; (2) in the control class, only 20 % of the students interacted satisfactorily well in purposeful tasks in English, but such a percentage in the mediated class with both updated contents of learning activities and an emotional positive environment was 93 %, the one with only an emotional positive environment 80 %, the one with only updated contents of learning activities 76 %, the one with neither updated contents of learning activities nor an emotional positive environment 60 % . Section Ⅵ argued that such overall effectiveness of mediation here was attributed to enhanced learner motivation to learn English because of effective mediation while the particularly satisfactory effectiveness of mediation was attributed to the availability of updated contents of learning activities and an emotional positive environment including learner factors such as learner's intrinsic motivation , positive attitude towards target language community and...