On Classroom Interaction In ELT In Middle School--from The Perspective Of Constructivist Learning Theory

Constructivism is a new learning theory which is the latest development in the field of the western educational psychology and is accorded with quality-oriented education, for it can be used to answer such questions as how learning takes place, how meaning is constructed, how concepts are shaped and also the elements of ideal learning settings. Guided by this theory, a series of new and efficient cognitive learning theories have already been formed. These theories can be employed to improve English teaching in general and classroom interaction in particular.Classroom interaction is the face-to-face interpersonal interactive activity taking place both between the teachers and the students and between the students themselves. Only through it can classroom teaching be efficient. Therefore an efficient classroom interaction is regarded as the key to the success of classroom teaching.It is far from satisfactory as far as the result of our English classroom teaching is concerned by the author's investigation. The reasons for it are of many types. One worth mentioning is the strong influence of the traditional teaching method—the teacher-centered classroom teaching. In addition, the teachers in middle schools are too busy in their work to reflect the weaknesses of their teaching method so as to improve it .As a result, our English classroom teaching is low in efficiency and our students are poor in English communicative competence .How to improve the present classroom interaction becomes very urgent to the English teachers. It seems more urgent when the curriculum reform is going on all over the country. So this thesis tries to explore the principles, strategies and concrete methods guided by the constructivist learning theory on how to manage classroom interaction successfully in order to improve our English teaching. To test whether they are valid, a teachingexperiment is made in some middle schools in Shenzhen city and the result proves them to be valid.This paper is composed of five chapters .Chapter I gives a general introduction of the main views of both the constructivist learning theory and classroom interaction. Then it shifts its focus on the combination of the above two, attempting to explore how to apply it to the English teaching in Chinese middle schools.Chapter II gives a detailed introduction of the theory of classroom interaction. After the analysis of the concept, forms, study process of classroom interaction and also the importance of interactive activities, a questionnaire is designed to analyze the problems that exist in the present English teaching in Chinese middle schools. The survey shows that the efficiency of classroom interaction is far from satisfactory, and the main causes behind such low efficiency are that only a small part of the teachers have satisfactory classroom interaction and less than two-thirds of the students are satisfied with the classroom teaching given by their teachers.Chapter III is the most important chapter. It gives a systematical introduction of the origin, development of the theory of constructivism and also its learning theory. According to it, learning takes place under a certain social cultural background with learners constructing their own meanings with the help of others by interpersonal cooperative activities. The four elements of learning settings are situation, cooperation , communication , and meaning-constructing with meaning-constructing as the final goal of the learning process . The constructivist approach changes the focus of the classroom from teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness, which requires teachers to change their role as a sole information -sender to the one who assists the students in developing new insights. After that, the principles, strategies and concrete methods guided by the constructivist learning theory on how to manage classroom...