A Study Of College English Teachers' Role Based On Constructivism

Over the past two decades, there has been a tendency in college English teaching that the behaviorist learning theory which advocates the teacher-centered approach has been replaced by the cognitive learning theory which focuses on the student-centered approach. A great number of researches in the world indicate that students are the core of learning course while teachers play a less important role in it. However, in China most college English teachers are not aware of it. They believe they are center-dominated in English teaching and learning while students receive knowledge from them passively. Furthermore, most researches focus on students instead of teachers so that teachers don't understand much about teachers' role in English teaching.Nowadays curriculum reforms are being carried out in colleges and universities all around the world, of which the crux is to break the traditional teaching mode. This teacher-centered teaching mode also hinders the development of China's college English teaching. It has a bad effect not only on the quality of teaching and learning but also on cultivating students' ability. In order to change the situation, a number of researchers have done a lot to find an appropriate way from theory and practice. Constructivism is one of the best results of their studies, which focuses on students' active learning with the help of teachers. As a result, this paper puts stress on a study of college English teachers' role with the theoretical framework of constructivism, including its opinions about teachers' role, its teaching principles and teaching modes.Combined with the constructivist theory, we believe that in the constructivist English classroom, teachers should play a role of the facilitator to students' learning, organizer of activities and adviser of students. In order to test the efficiency of the three roles and their function to students' abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing, we carried out an experiment, lasting 18 weeks (2006.3-7) with the subjects of 62 college students from two classes of Grade Two, who attended the college in 2004 and major in computer. The two classes were given lessons by the same teacher and had the same instruction time, but were taught in two different ways - the traditional way and the constructivist approach. At the end of the term, the students in the two classes were required to attend the questionnaire, the post-test and some students of the experimental class were invited to join in the individual research. Through the analysis of the data and results of the questionnaire, the post-test and the individual research, we can draw a conclusion that compared with the traditional classroom, the constructivist classroom has more advantages; the students in the experimental class got higher marks and became more confident in learning English than those in the control class; the three roles of teachers can help students actively learn English and improve their abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing, but the result also shows that the traditional teaching method are better at imparting grammar rules to students and the three roles do not work efficiently on that. Thus, teachers should use every means to improve students' English achievements and their abilities accordingly. Moreover, all the teaching activities should be designed for students because they are the main part of learning.The present study has great theoretical and practical significance in English teaching and learning. First, it has proved that English teachers' role has greatly changed in modern English teaching. Teachers own more space and freedom to guide students into different activities. Second, if college English teachers learn and study the constructivist learning theory and carry out some practical teaching activities based on constructivism, they can advance college English teaching reforms and cultivate high-quality talents for society better.