A Narrative Inquiry Into The Nurturing Of Classroom Learning Community Of English Majors In A Normal University

Nowadays, the traditional education mode, which focuses on teacher and textbook, exists in many college English classes. This model does not adapt to the learning society of21st century and the requirement of lifelong learning. What’s more, it can’t cultivate students’autonomous and cooperative learning ability. In the face of the problem of college English teaching, nurturing a classroom learning community is one of the ways to solve the problem.In the past decades, the researches on learning community have been very fruitful, both at home and abroad, but few researchers have focused on the classroom learning community. The study adopts narrative inquiry and case study to discuss how to nurture classroom learning community and its impacts on college English learners. The paper aims to answer the following questions:1) How does the teacher nurture a classroom learning community?2) What are the impacts of classroom learning community nurturing on college English learners?3) What are the challenges and opportunities the teacher and learners face in nurturing a classroom learning community?The research took place in the Basic English course for English major freshmen of Class012in a Normal University in Zhejiang Province. They entered university in September2011. The whole research lasted nearly one year (from October2011to June2012). The research participants contain Mrs. Wang, the teacher of this course, who has more than30years teaching life for the English majors and24students (22girls and2boys). In order to make the research more authentic and effective, I collected the data from a variety of data source, including class observations, students’ learning portfolios, students’PPT, interviews, class records and so on. Based on the data I collected and analyzed, I wrote four case stories happening in the classroom.The thesis focused on the nurturing of classroom learning community based on learning theory of constructivism. First of all, the thesis summarizes the related researches on community, learning community and classroom learning community, at home and abroad. It also presents the influence of constructivism learning theory on classroom learning community. Then, combined to the case stories of my research, the thesis tries to present how to nurture classroom learning community from two parts. The first part presents the principles of nurturing classroom learning community. The second part tries to describe the concrete steps to nurture a classroom learning community. The following part is to sum up the impacts on college English learners through classroom learning community. The research findings show that the students’ autonomous learning ability has been cultivated and improved; their ability to cooperate with others has been developed; their learning motivation has been activated. Then it states the opportunity and challenges facing both teachers and students during nurturing classroom learning community. Finally, I make a conclusion with the summary of the whole study with limitation and suggestions.The study attempts to nurture a classroom learning community to alter the traditional model of college English class. At the same time, it provides a new idea to today’s foreign language teaching.