Integrating Neobehaviorist And Constructivist Approaches In Web And Computer Assisted English Teaching As Foreign Language

In recent twenty years'English teaching and theoretical research, people paid more and more attention to the application of constructivism in practical English teaching and theoretical research, meanwhile the theory of behaviorism, which played an important guiding role in practical English teaching for years, gradually fades out. However, behaviorism still exerts a subtle influence on practical English teaching and gets improved step by step. Take, the prevailing Audiolingualism Method in 40s and 50s of last century, for example, the well-known English 900 around 1960s was based on Audiolingualism Method theory, besides, it is the same with some other teaching materials like New Concept English, Look, Listen and Learn, Success with English, etc. The Audiolingualism Method theory influenced Chinese English teaching greatly. In 1978 and 1981, the people's education press was entrusted by the Ministry of Education to frame English teaching syllabus for middle school and compiled new textbooks and reference books. The syllabus and textbooks both absorbed some teaching principles from Audiolingualism Method. With the advent of the new century, it is necessary to reflect and research on the questions about the orientation of behaviorism in English teaching.This paper begins with literature review about behaviorism and constructivism, aims to expatiate the feasibility of the integration from theoretical and empirical perspectives in the process of development, and tries to find out the influences and meanings to practical English teaching. It will primarily probe into the integration about the theoretical elements, integrating route, and relevant strategies.In empirical researches, this paper especially focuses on the status quo of Chinese English teaching in colleges—in recent English teaching, more and more people advocate the guiding of constructivism while ignore the active function of behaviorism, hence the polarization phenomenon. Interviews and questionnaires are used to find out how teachers deal with English teaching under the guidance of the two different theories and the students'attitude toward the two different teachings. The result reveals that although there is some controversy about the application of the two different guiding theories, they have already realized the advantages and disadvantages of the two guiding theories, most of them hold an affirmative attitude toward the necessity of the two theories integrating in practice.Furthermore, this paper mainly focuses on the English teaching assisted by web and computer. Compared with traditional teaching methods, the web & computer based English teaching includes more exterior elements, embodies the guiding sense of behaviorism even more, what's more, the web & computer based English teaching is a teaching mode newly introduced and rapidly promoted in recent years, it is quite important to find the matching theories for its guidance.The aim of this paper is to help college English teachers get rid of the misunderstanding, get a correct understanding of the guiding sense of behaviorism and constructivism, avoid the polarization phenomenon in practical teaching, apply properly the guidance of the two theories in teaching and get ideal effects.