A Study Of College English Reading Teaching Based On Constructivism

With the rapid development of China's economy, English is getting more and more important as an all-purpose language especially after China's entry into the WTO and winning the right to hold 2008 Olympics. With the arrival of the information age, increasingly frequent contacts have taken place among people from every corner of the world. In this age written information in English is playing a more and more important role in the cultural exchanges, and economic and technological cooperation between people speaking different languages and from different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, how to cultivate and improve English reading ability and obtain much more valid information in limited time, have drawn more and more attention from researchers in the fields of English learning and teaching. At the same time, talents with good English proficiency are urgently needed by all kinds of professions and they put a high demand on university graduates. Therefore, scholars have paid a lot attention to college English reading teaching which, for the Chinese students, is the main channel to learn English.In general, reading comprehension covers thirty-five percent in Chinese standard English examinations, such as CET-4 and CET-6. However, a large number of students fail in this part because of their poor reading ability. The grammar section of English tests is easier for them and they usually get high marks for this part. The reading section, however, is harder for them and they always do comparatively worse due to their poor reading skills, their unfamiliarity with the background knowledge of English, and their weak ability in summarizing an article and understanding the implied meaning of terms and expressions. The level of a student's English reading ability reflects his practical ability of utilizing English in a proper way. Therefore, English teaching, especially college English teaching should emphasize how to improve the reading ability of students. Since reading is a main means of input in English learning can make it possible for English learners to produce correct English sentences through speaking and writing. That's also the reason why reading is always emphasized in college English teaching all the time. The current college English reading teaching is based on a teacher-centered educational thought, so that teachers'instruction has dominated most of the English class activities in China. The teacher's dominant position is stressed in this model and the students receive knowledge passively. This model is no good for the cultivation of students'creativity, so a new instructional college English teaching model is badly needed, which is expected emphasize the guidance of teachers and reflects the importance of students'roles during their English learning process at the same time.Constructivism, a branch of cognitive theory, is a theory about knowledge and learning. It describes both the nature of knowledge and the process of acquiring that knowledge. Knowledge is described as temporary, developmental, non-objective, internally constructed, and socially and culturally mediated, while. learning is construed as an interpretive and recursive building process by active learners interacting with the physical and social world. Constructivism is also a theory of knowledge that states that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it is an interaction between their experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. It views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge or experiences. It also advocates the theory that learning is a process in which the students creates or establishes new thoughts and philosophy positively.In this study, a survey was first conducted on the reading performance by 2000 non-English majors in DongBei University of Finance and Economics (DUFE) to show the status of reading comprehension and the present situation of college English reading teaching in China. And then a college English reading teaching model based on constructivist learning theory is presented. Through a comparison between the teacher-centered and student-centered English reading teaching models, the differences between them are revealed and the advantages for the latter based on constructivism has become more obvious.The whole thesis divides into six chapters as follows:Chapter One is the instruction part including the background, the significance, the purposes and the organization of the study. The present college English learning situations in China and the reason why this study is done are discussed. Chapter Two delineates the theoretical framework of the study. Literature and the relevant researches are also reviewed. Chapter Three first examines the previous studies on college English reading, some different interpretations of the reading process and models for the reading process. And then a survey was conducted on the reading performance of 2000 non-English majors in Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (DUFE) in their CET-6 in order to discuss the significance of reading comprehension and the present situation of college English reading teaching in China. Chapter Four presents a design of college English teaching model based on constructivism. Chapter Five first makes a comparison between the two college English reading teaching models, and then some problems that might exist in the present constructivism-based reading teaching model are discussed. Finally some suggestions for college English reading teaching are proposed. Chapter Six is a conclusion section, in which the major findings of the study are first summarized, and then practical implications of the study are discussed. The limitations of this study are pointed out and some suggestions for future researches are made.