Constructivist Learning Theory And Its Application To Oral English Teaching In Rural High School

With deepening of the secondary English teaching reform, Oral English teaching becomes more and more important. Therefore, the goal of secondary English teaching is not just to pass a series of examinations,but to cultivate students' communicateive competence. However, the absence of English Learning environment,the heavy pressure of NME and teachers' traditional teaching methods have made Oral English teaching become the weak link in secondary English teaching.Meanwhile, most students can pass exams but can't or are afraid of speaking English. The purpose of this study is to explore the implication of CLT and its application to Oral English teaching in rural high shool.Constructivist learning theory (CLT),which was first put forward by J.Piaget, is an important branch of cognitivism, which lays much emphasis on the concept that the learning process is an active process of constructing knowledge through the interaction between organism and environment and through the participant's cooperation in a certain context. Now, Constructivist learning theory has been widely used in the teaching field.Against this background, this study intended to test the efficiency of CLT. By conducting an experiment in a class of students in Yangxin No.1 High School, where the writer works, the writer verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the new mode. On the basis of the experiment results, the teachers can, to some extent, help students change their way of Oral English learning,from a passive one to an active, exploratory and cooperative one. In this paper, the main research method was Experiment in class. Literature review,Questionnaire investigation, After-class interview were supplementary.This paper consisted of five chapters. The first chapter briefly introduced the background of the research, research hypothesis and the structures in this paper. The second chapter made a literature review of the current situation of studies on the application of Constructivist learning theory on Oral English teaching and learning, especially in high school home and abroad. The thesis introduced relevant basic theories such as cognitivism and constructivism before it moved on to discuss several models of constructivism on Oral English teaching. In view of the present situation of Oral English teaching and learning for rural high school students, the third chapter put forward a new mode of Oral English teaching and learning. Furthermore, this chapter expounded this mode in detail in terms of theoretical basis, preparation for the experiment, design plan, teaching strategy, and operation process. The fourth chapter focused on the goal, the object, the content, the procedures, the examples of the research, and analyzed the research results. The fifth chapter illustrated the conclusion resulting from the study, the effect and significance of the research as well as the limitations of CLT.In the past year, the writer experimented on this mode and found the application of CLT contributes to the enhancement of the students'motivation to improve their oral English, which leads to significant improvement of the students' language competence and their English communicative ability.