An Experimental Study On Teaching English Vocabulary In College English Class Based On The Theory Of Constructivism

Vocabulary teaching is an important and difficult issue in Chinese college Englishteaching. However, the vocabulary teaching and learning in classroom is not satisfactoryin the current status. Traditionally, vocabulary is learned by imitation, repetition, andmemorization. English teacher usually teaches by two ways, asking students to read wordlists in textbooks, or writing new words on blackboard with the corresponding Chinesemeaning, which is not enough for students. Obviously, the current vocabulary teachingmethod can not meet the requirement and can not bring the optimal efficiency to improvelearners' vocabulary knowledge. It is urgent that innovation of vocabulary teaching fornon-English major undergraduates should be carried out.Based on the practical situation of vocabulary teaching in non-English majors, thisproject intends to find an efficient way to learn English vocabulary which is to putConstructivism and The depth of information processing theory into vocabulary teaching.Constructivism is a theory of knowledge epistemology which argues that humans generateknowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experience and their ideas.Piaget's theory of constructivist learning emphasizes the importance of the learner beingactively involved in the learning process, unlike previous educational viewpoints wherethe responsibility rested on the instructor to teach and where the learner played a passive,receptive role.This project is an experimental research. There was a combination of quantitativeanalysis and qualitative study to process the data which was collected throughquestionnaire, class observation and interview. The subjects chosen for the experiment aretwo classes of freshmen altogether amounting to100in Hebei Normal University ofScience and Technology. Two classes are chosen to participate in the experimentalteaching, one of which is treated as experimental group and taught by the new teachingmodel, whereas the other one, as the control group, which is taught by traditional method,the teaching programme lasted for one term in order to ensure the reliability. The data ofthe test analysed by software SPSS.The statistic results of their scores calculated by SPSS show that experimental class perform better than controlled class and there exists significant difference between them,which in turn affirmed the research question and hypotheses that comparing with currentprevailing vocabulary teaching method, the method which put Constructivism and thedepth of information processing theory can bring higher efficiency in non-English majors'receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge. Although the theory of Constructivismaroused many scholars' attention, few of them put it into the actual vocabulary teachingpractice. The present project made use of the theory and conducted an experimentalresearch to improve the teaching practice of English vocabulary. The research has boththeoretical and practical values. Firstly, it lends theoretical support to the field of Englishvocabulary teaching innovation for non-English majors in China. Secondly it provides anew model for English vocabulary teaching innovation, and at the mean time thereliability of the new model has been tested by the research.