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1、The Application of the Constructivism Theory in the Middle School English Writing构建主义理论在中学英语写作的运用Abstract: It is a common knowledge that the writing teaching is the important content of English teaching in junior middle school. Students in middle school, being poor in independent study, are in the e
2、lementary stage of English learning and writing is their most worst part in four skills. However, in most junior middle schools in China, lots of teachers tend to use the traditional methods in the writing, that is, they impart and the students accept passively. The paper analyzes the current situat
3、ions of English writing, presents the Constructivism Theorys concept of teaching and learning have a positive influence on writing teaching. The author advocates the guidance of this theory to serve the teaching well in so that it can improve students awareness of English writing and cultivate their
4、 writing ability.Key words: writing teaching， the Constructivism Theory, middle school, cultivate the ability of writing 【摘 要】众所周知，写作教学是初中英语教学的重要内容。初中学生处于英语学习的初级阶段，自主学习能力差而写作是他们最薄弱的环节，但是老师仍然在写作教学中仍然实行传统教学-老师传授，学生被动接受。笔者分析当前初中英语写作的现状，提出了构建主义理论的学习观和教学观对教学产生的积极影响，倡导教师在构建主义理论的指导下，更好进行英语写作教学，提高学生的写作意识和培养
5、学生的写作能力。【关键词】写作教学, 构建主义, 初中, 写作能力培养 ContentsIntroduction11. The Definition and the Situation of Writing.11.1 The definition of English Writing21.2 The Situation of the Writing.21.2.1 The Students Problem in Writing.21.2.2 The Situation of Writing Teaching32. The Constructivism Theory.32.1 The Constr
6、uctivism Theorys Concept of Teaching.3 2.2 The Constructivism Theorys Concept of Learning.43. The Role of Teachers in the Writing.43.1.1 The Designer of Writing Tasks.53.1.2 The Organizers of Various Activities.53.1.3 The Promoters of Writing Activities.63.1.4 The Creators of the Human Environment.6
7、4.The Constructivism Theorys Applied Strategy in the Writing.64.1 Provide a Positive Writing Psychological Scaffolding.6 4.2 Provide Interactive Scaffolding.8 4.2.1Brainstorming.8 4.2.2 Games and Activities.8 4.2.3 The Contest.9 4.3 Provide the Scaffolding of Evaluation. 9 4.3.1 The focus of teacher
8、 evaluation.9 4.3.2 Establish Portfolios and Implement the Evaluation.10Conclusion10Bibliography.11Acknowldgements.12Introduction English as a foreign language has taught for a long time in China. An increasing number of people have paid great attention to English teaching due to the practice of the
9、 Opening and Reform Policy. Besides, there are four basic skills in the process of English learning-listening, speaking, reading and writing among which, writing is a kind of compressive expression ability. However, it cannot be neglected that English writing teaching still has a long way to reach t
10、he national English level on account of Chinese traditional teaching method. Therefore, what teachers need to do is how to change the situation in which teachers just give students a topic and then mark these compositions in the traditional approach and fostering studentsinterests in writing is the
11、issue that all the countries encounter nowadays. As constructivism gets more concerns from the researchers in teaching, some constructists have put forward various reforms to shape“student-centered”model in classroom teaching, trying to cultivate studentsmotivation and initiation of writing, interac
12、tion with teachers.While just recently brought to the forefront of educational theories, the roots of constructivism can be dated back to the 18th century to the Italian sociology, and education woven into its history. However, many major contemporaries contribute to the development of a clearer ide
13、a of constructivism and its possible implication for education. These include Piaget, Dewey, Vygotsky, Bruner, and Ausbel. John Dewey provided a foundation for constructivism. He believed that teaching should be built based on what learners already knew and engage learners in learning activities. Ze
14、melamn, Daniels, and Hyde (1993 (2) ) tells that learning in all subject areas involves inventing and constructing new ideas. They suggest that the Construction Theory be incorporated into the curriculum, and advocate that teachers create a environment in which students can construct their own under
15、standings. And Bruner defines constructivism as a learning theory, which holds that learning is an active process in which learners construct their ideas or concepts based upon their current an past knowledge (Kearsley, 1999). Cunningham and Duffy identified two major similarities that are the found
16、ation of all constructivist theories. They are: learning is an active process of supporting that construction rather than communicating knowledge (Cunningham & Duffy, 1996, p.1772)The author holds the idea that in order to reach the aims of the New English Curriculum Criterion towards writing, teach
17、ers can not follow the old traditional writing instruction but as guiders, teachers can stimulate students interests and encourage them to have enough interaction both in and out of class under the application of the Construction Theory in English writing.This paper is going to discuss mainly the co
18、nnotation of the Construction Theory, such as its concept of teaching and learning, as well as its applied strategies in the writing.1. The Definition and the Situation of Writing What is the English writing? And there are two main problems of writing in the junior middle school including students a
19、nd teachers.1.1 The definition of English WritingWriting is not only an extremely complex psychological process, but also is an important component of communicative ability. Writing, as an output activities, reflects the studentsEnglish comprehensive ability and plays an important role in the Englis
20、h teaching. “ Writing has two meanings, which can refer to writing as well as the process of output”. The double meaning of writing on writing teaching has a very important guiding significance. It is helpful for us to recognize the phenomenon of the traditional writing teaching-overvalue the result
21、 but neglect the object.1.2 The Situation of the Writing With the deepening of Chinas reform and opening-up and the formation of global economic integration, English as an international language plays an important role in the politics, economy, culture, education and other fields. Teachers should im
22、prove their quality of English teaching, which is important for students to use English better in the future. Writing in exams is in the high proportion and it is one of the most difficult parts that improve four skills. Regarding the current situation of English teaching in middle school, the major
23、ity of students complete the writing task at the request of the teacher and rarely check articles carefully again. Some fear the writing, even have lost the confidence in it and do not want to write any more. Therefore, writing is a big bottleneck for students, which should attach great importance t
24、o it and find out the effective way to solve.1.2.1The StudentsProblem in Writing1) The Mode of ThinkingChinese students, affected by traditional modes of thinking, often apply some vocabulary or expressions in Chinese to articles, so it produces the so-called Chinglish. Whats more, Chinese way of th
25、inking is circular, so students often center on the main idea to state, while the western way of thinking is a straight line, put forward a topic directly and demonstrate this point one-by-one. Therefore, students will make lots of mistakes in their articles.2) The Problem of the Grammar Traditional
26、 grammar teaching is more around the examination, so students only acquire the syntax rather than the expression one, during which, they do well in doing simple grammar multiple choice questions. However, writing needs to be flexible in the usage of the learned grammar into sentences to express idea
27、s. In a word, there are so many problems such as, serious basic syntax errors, morphology, the weak ability of syntax, the poor language, poor sense of language, the short analysis of the information. 3) The Problem of DiscourseTheir articles is poor in discourse layout, lack of discourse cohesion,
28、logicality and logical. Most students are careless in examining the topic before starting to write and even some deem the practice of Chinese as English translation. So the article is loosely structured within the lack of theme.4) The Problem of Vocabulary It is no doubt that writing is to test the
29、studentsreproduction capability and ask students to own a solid word foundation in their composition. To write a good article, enough vocabulary is a prerequisite for it. Due to studentspoor vocabulary, a word or phrase is often used repeatedly in the process of writing, such an article lacks of lan
30、guage change and tedious. Sometimes students make mistakes in spelling and use the improper words although they think for a long time.1.2.2 The Situation of Writing TeachingWriting is a process to pass the information to the reader.(Erika Lindermanma, 1987 ( 2 ) ).The course of writing is of great v
31、alue for both teachers and students, for the process of using language is the manifestation of English proficiency (吴道存, 1991 ( 5 ): 40-45 ).However, there is a big problem: most of the teachers emphasize how to teach students while they hardly stress that how to learn for students, who have little
32、opportunity to join in the teaching activity. 1) No pay attention to students communicative abilityTeaching activities remained just to explain the content of the texts, for example, the language of expression and grammar, etc. Although students understand what teachers teach in class clearly, they
33、do not have enough opportunity to communicate in the language environment. When writing, they dont know what to do or how to do next.2) No pay enough attention to cultivating the ability of writing.However, in the real teaching, teachers often spend less time in writing and just ask students to comp
34、lete them in the form of the layout for homework assignments. Of course, there are few students to do them as required, as a result, student mode of thinking is inactive.2. The constructivism TheoryThe Construction Theory is a newest teaching theory in western educational psychology, originally prop
35、osed by the famous Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in the 1960s,later other psychologists and educators such as Vygotsky ,etc. enriched and developed respectively from the nature and development conditions of the cognitive structure, which formed the complete constructivism. It emphasizes the initiat
36、ive of learning and students are the builders of their own cognitive structures, rather than the passive information receivers with nothing in the head into the classroom. The teaching isnt the course of teaching textbook knowledge, but it should help students build gradually deepening intelligent s
37、tructure in the basis of personal knowledge and experience.2.1. The Constructivism Theorys Concept of TeachingConstructivist emphasizes learning is the process that students take the initiative to build their own knowledge rather than teachers transfer something to the students, in the same way , le
38、arners are not passive receivers of the stimulus, but active builders of their own knowledge structure. the United States contemporary sociologists (Von Glasemfield) thinks: “knowledge is not passively absorbed, but actively built by the cognitive subject”. (Von Glasemfield, 1995), it means learning
39、 is active and the learner is not a passive learner of the stimulus who needs to do active selection and process of external information leading to the concept of change and structural reorganization under the new and old experience conflict. The learning process is not about simple information inpu
40、t, storage and retrieval,but is about between the old and new experience in the two-way interaction. (陈琦, 1998 （1 ): 4-5 ). Assimilation refers to put learners external information into existing cognitive structure, in order to enrich and strengthen existing thinking tendencies and behavior patterns
41、. Adaptation is the process between the learners existing cognitive structure and new external conflict causing the adjustment and change of original cognitive structure as to establish a new cognitive structure .Assimilation is the quantitative change of the structure, and adaptation is the qualita
42、tive change in the cognitive structure. Learning is the process of assimilation, adaptation, re-assimilation, re-adaptation, etc. (徐捷, 2001 ( 9 ): 3-4)2.2 The Constructivism Theorys Concept of LearningConstructivism thinks that knowledge is not imparted by teachers, but learners get it with the help
43、 of others in certain situations-the social and cultural context，such as the interpersonal collaboration, language discussion activities. Therefore, the “situation”,“collaboration”,“session”and“meaning construction”are the four elements of the learning environment for constructivism. Situation：the“s
44、ituation”of the learning environment must be conducive to students to build on what they have learned. In the Constructivism learning environment, teaching design should not only be related to the teaching objective analysis but also should be considered to be beneficial for students to build the cr
45、eation of situations, whats more, collaboration exists in the learning process. Collaborative plays an important role in the collection and analysis of learning materials the submission and verification of assuming as well as the evaluation of learning outcome. “Session”：the session is an indispensa
46、ble part in the process of writing. The study group members must discuss how to complete the required learning task, besides the process of collaborative learning is that of the session, in which each learners ideas is shared by the entire learning community, so “session” is one of the important means to build “Meaning construction”：it is the ultimate goal of the whole learning process. The significance of building is the intrinsic link in nature and law of things. In the learning process, to help students construct meaning is to help them reach a more profoun
