A Comparison Between Constructive And Behaviorist Models Of Extracurricular Reading Instructions

Under the background of the new curriculum reform in basic education, some teachers in the field of foreign language teaching over-criticize behaviorist teaching model while some other teachers vigorously promote constructivist model, considering that the latter is omnipotent. Some even propose a complete abandon of the former and a whole acceptance of the latter. However, according to the relevant principles of behaviorism and constructivism, the two models may have their own merits and demerits. So it is possible for the two teaching models to play a different role in different dimensions of foreign language teaching. This paper takes extracurricular reading instructions for examples, comparing the different functions of the two models from different foreign language teaching dimensions, mainly vocabulary and grammatical acquisition and contextual meaning comprehension. The results of this study showed that students instructed with constructive principles in extracurricular reading had a better achievement in the comprehension of meaning and the stylistic characteristics of a text, but they were less effective in the command of grammar and vocabulary. On the contrary, students instructed with behaviorist principles had a better grasp of grammar and vocabulary, but they were less capable in inferring meaning from contextual information.Therefore, we tried to extract the reasonable principles from two models so that we could construct a comprehensive extracurricular reading instruction model with effetive practice in grammar and vocabulary and effective guidance in stylistic aspects of a text. The method which combined behaviorist strengthening training mechanism with constructive guiding and finding principles proved to be effective to promote the students'reading ability with a better achievement in vocabulary, grammar and the comprehension of texts.