Application Of The Five-step Teaching Approach To English Newspaper Reading Course From The Perspective Of Constructivism

As a kind of teaching material, foreign newspaper boasts five superior characteristics: fresh contents, modern language, sufficient knowledge, practical words and plenty fun. Since 1980s, the value of foreign newspaper has been acknowledged by more and more instructors and learners. Meanwhile, plenty of universities of high learning have established the foreign newspaper reading course.However, the author has found out some weak points about this course. For example, lots of universities attach little importance to the selection of material; during the whole class, the instructor dominates the class and learners are just passive receivers; the teaching content is limited to the texts, etc. All these problems lead to the consequence that learners'imagination is greatly limited.Constructivism is an important branch of cognitive learning theory which has been underlined in recent years. This theory believes that knowledge should not be lectured by instructors, and during the whole process of learning, learners should be regarded as the main body while the instructor should act as a facilitator and helper, making full use of the content, collaboration and dialogue to bring learner's imagination and initiative to a larger extent so as to complete the final step of learning.The Five-step Teaching Approach is a teaching mode that comprises five aspects, namely,"learning guidance, self-learning, teacher's explanation, collaborative learning and multimedia aid". Used in newspaper reading class, it is quite helpful to students in self-learning. Following the modern teaching concept, it guides the teacher to apply modern information technology in class. The teaching in class should be student-centered and the teacher is just a guide in the learning process. The Five-step Teaching Approach takes multimedia as its base to help students learn the course of newspaper reading better. Applying the Five-step Teaching Approach to the course of newspaper reading is a constructive attempt to improve the quality of newspaper reading class.