Autonomous-Cooperative Teaching And Learning: A Constructivist Perspective On College English Teaching

Constructivism, a psychology theory developing very fast in recent years, originates directly from Piaget's Genetic Epistemology and Vygotsky's Historical Cultural Development Theory. Constructivism assumes that knowledge is actively constructed in individual cognitive structure and therefore, it is basically individual but depending on the same experience and social communications. This theory has already been widely applied in such disciplines as sociology, international relations, pedagogy and many others.With the teaching mode shifting from teacher-centered to learner-centered in recent years, great attention has been drawn to autonomous learning and cooperative learning on one hand, and on the other hand, constructivism learning theory has greatly influenced foreign language teaching and learning. Therefore, it is doubtless that the application of constructivism in foreign language teaching and learning will come out positive.Constructivism emphasizes cognition, independence, experience and environment included in the constructing process of knowledge. This thesis synthesizes this view and the features of autonomous learning and cooperative learning, attempting to combine, from a constructivism perspective, the two seeming contradictory learning methods, so as to form another new method, that is, autonomous-cooperative teaching and learning. A new teaching and learning mode has been designed accordingly and applied in practical teaching and learning.In this thesis, an experimental study is conducted upon non-English majors to test the effectiveness of Autonomous-Cooperative teaching and learning for college English teaching (CET). The experimental study has lasted for half a year. In the study, the autonomous-cooperative approach and the final English examination results are used as variables to test if there is some significant difference between the experimental group and the controlled group. The finding of the experimental study shows that the significant difference exists between the two groups.The result of the study proves that autonomous-cooperative approach can effectively advance learners'language learning and knowledge construction and ultimately improve the efficiency of teaching. Therefore, it is valuable and practical in the field of CET.