An Autonomous, Cooperative, And Self-Evaluating Model Of Learning Based On Constructivism

Constructivism originates directly from Piaget's Genetic Epistemology and Vygotsky's Historical Cultural Development Theory. The theory 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 education and many other fields.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, there is no doubt that the application of constructivism in foreign language learning will come out positively.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 learning methods, so as to form another new method, that is, autonomous-cooperative-self-evaluating learning method. A new 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-self-evaluating learning for college English learning. The experimental study has lasted for half a year. In the study, the autonomous-cooperative-self-evaluating 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-self-evaluating approach can effectively enhance learners' language learning and knowledge construction and ultimately improve the efficiency of learning. Therefore, it is valuable and practical in the field of College English Teaching.