The Vocabulary Teaching Mode Based on the Theory of Constructivism

Abstract

Vocabulary teaching is an important research topic in English teaching, this paper combines constructivist theory with English vocabulary teaching and proposes a new model of vocabulary teaching on the basis of qualitative analysis and modular construction, that is “The Word Parameter Contextualized Meaning Construction Mode and The Embodiment-activation Schematic Construction Mode”, the former point out that some words, in vocabulary teaching, do not appear in the vocabulary list, but teachers can hint parameters or clues in the context, such as: time, categories, comparison etc. to guide students to recognize and construct the meaning of unknown words autonomously; the latter means that the human brain systematically stores the learned knowledge and experience and divides it into several units to form a "schema" of which some incomplete places will continue to be supplemented and improved with people's cognition and practice’s development. At the same time, the accumulation of new knowledge will activate the old knowledge in the brain, which enables learners to connect messy knowledge into a systematic network. It is worth promoting in teaching practice. This study selects the college English textbook "New Vision" as the case material to analyze and prove that this new type of vocabulary teaching mode not only can broaden the teaching thinking of teachers and improve teaching efficiency, but also can help students explore the cognitive laws of vocabulary, build a vocabulary system, and effectively stimulate their potential in the short term.