An Empirical Research Of CLT Based On Constructivist Theories To College English Reading Teaching

College English Curriculum Requirements (2007) issued by the Ministry of Education clearly points out that the mode of teaching is not only a change of teaching method and teaching means, but also a change of teaching concept which advocates changing the teaching thought and practice from pure teacher-centered language knowledge and skills teaching to the student-centered one which both teaches the language knowledge and skills and cultivates the students’abilities to use synthetic language and abilities of autonomous learning as well as life-long learning. While at present, many college English teachers still give their reading lectures with the traditional teacher-centered mode. They explain grammar, difficult sentences to students of the texts rather than attach importance to developing the ability of analysis and appreciation. As a result, they neglect to cultivate their students’ integrated ability by analyzing and appreciating the texts when giving them college English reading lectures. Such situation makes students lose their interest in reading. Therefore, it is very necessary to explore better methods of college English reading teaching.The author explores the Communicative Language Teaching on college English reading teaching with the qualitative and quantitative methods based on constructivist theory and conducts the systematic research The experiment chose116freshmen randomly from Bohai University majoring in history and they were divided into experimental class (Class Three), which applied constructivist theory to the reading teaching process, while the control class (Class Four) adopted the traditional way. Pre-test and post-test were put into use at the start of the term and the end of the this experiment and a questionnaire was adopted in EC. The data from pre-experiment and post-experiment were analyzed by software SPSS11.0.And the author aims to answer the following three questions through the study:(1) If college English reading teaching in the method of CLT based on constructivist theory are superior to the traditional way?(2) If college English reading teaching in the method of CLT based on constructivist theory make the students complete their tasks actively inside and outside the classroom so as to form a nice reading habit?(3) If English teachers can arouse students’ interest and improve their scores through the practice under the guidance of in the method of CLT based on constructivist theory?The results of the research are as follows:(1) Compared with the freshmen in control class, the performance of the students in experimental class is significantly better in the post-experiment, which proves that the application of constructivist theory to College English reading teaching can improve the students’abilities to use synthetic language and their grades in the exams.(2) Questionnaire survey from the EC reveals that new teaching mode can arouse students’ interest and confidence, what’s more, it makes them aware of the importance of autonomy and makes them involved in the whole teaching process.(3) Freshmen in EC under the guidance of teachers formed a good English thinking habit and learn how to solve the difficulties in reading by themselves.To sum up, the method of CLT based on constructivist theory applied in college English reading is positive.