Constructivism Guided L2 Teaching Methodologies In CALL

Constructivism is the further development of learning theory after behaviorism and cognitivism and it is regarded as a great innovation of modern teaching theory. With the development of Information Technology, especially the development of multimedia technology, teaching activities depend more and more on the brand-new theory. Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), based on multimedia and Network Communications technology, has been popularly applied to second language teaching, which provokes profound changes in teaching theories, teaching methodology, and multimedia design, etc.This thesis explores the teaching models and design under constructivism and elaborates the three constructivism-guided teaching methodologies (the author mainly focuses on Scaffolding Instruction and designs a case study about this instruction). Based on constructivism, the author provides some suggestions on how to make designs in CALL environment for the three teaching methodologies so as to achieve effective results.To validate the teaching effects under new theories and models, the author makes case study on Scaffolding Instruction with the freshmen of non-English majors as the subjects. The students are divided into two groups, one is the experimental group and the other is the control group. Scaffolding instruction is applied to the former group and traditional teaching methodology to the latter. The author makes analysis on their test performance and oral test performance with independent sample T test to contrast the differences of teaching effects between the two teaching methodologies. It turns out that the experimental group obtains improved grades, especially in oral tests compared to the control group, based on which the author concludes that constructivism-guided teaching methodologies—Scaffolding Instruction can bring about excellent results in second language teaching in CALL environment.