Constructivist Theory And Its Application In English Vocabulary Learning And Teaching In Middle School

Vocabulary learning is one of the most important parts in language learning. In2011, the New Standard of English Curirculum proposed by Ministry of Educationput forward a higher requirement foi middle school students. According to thestandard, middle school students are required to learn1500-1600words upongraduation. The increasing of vocabulary has imposed a great challenge on middleschool students in China. However, although students have spent a large amount oftime in learning vocabulary, their learning results are far from satisfaction. Andstudents also complain that vocabulary learning is a tough task for them. Therefore, itis urgent for scholars and educators to explore proper vocabulary learning strategieswhich can facilitate students’ vocabulary learning.The thesis mainly contains: Several representative ifgures of constructivism,constructivist view of leanring，teaching and knowledge, the compairson betweenconstructivist learning theory and traditional learning theory. By compairson, we cansee that there are many defects in traditional learning method. According to thelearning contents of middle school, the thesis puts emphasis on the vocabularylearning strategies based on constructivist theoires, such as grouping, word buildingassociation, word meaning association，stimulating interest, communicative activitiesand so on. In order to investigate the current vocabulary learning status in middleschools, the author designs three questionnaires and conducts an expeirment.Two questionnaires are used to see middle school students’ beliefs towardsvocabulary learning and the strategies they employed when they are learningvocabulary. And the other questionnaire is made for teachers. According to it, we canhave a picture of students’ vocabulary learning rfom teachers’ perspective. From thesequestionnaires, we can see that the main reason for students’ poor vocabulary learningperformances is the absent of the applications of learning strategies.What’s more, in order to test the eiffciency of the vocabulary learning strategiesmentioned above, the author conducts an expeirment. Two classes are selected as the subjects of the expeirment, one is regarded as the control group and the other isregarded as the expeirmental group. Before we start the expeirment, a pre-test iscarired out to see whether the two classes are at the same level of English vocabulary.Atfer two months’ experiment, both of the two groups have a post-test exam. SPSS isused to analyze the collected date. Atfer statistics analysis, we have the conclusionthat the proper use of constructivist vocabulary learning strategies can help improvestudents’ vocabulary learning eiffciency,The thesis associates vocabulary learning strategies with constructivist theoires,which makes vocabulary learning theoretical and systematical. And not only studentsbut also teachers can benefit a lot rfom these strategies.