辽宁师范大学Psychology for Language Teachers

Psychology for Language Teachers: A Social Constructivist Approach Psychology for Language Teachers: A Social Constructivist Approach Instructor: Cui Lin Time: Fall of 2010 Description of the Course This course aims to provide those majors of English education (English teachers, would-be English teachers including postgraduate students) with a psychological foundation which will help them better understand ways of teaching and learning and which will provide a fund of knowledge from which to draw to inform their later classroom practices. The primary purpose of this course is to reflect the current theoretical development in pedagogy related to classroom learning, especially the psychological aspects of language learning and teaching. Based on a quick review of some of the precursors in pedagogical theorization, we will examine social constructivism whose main assumption is that individuals are actively involved right from birth in constructing personal meaning, that is, their own personal understanding, from their experiences. This is done, however, through interactions with significant others. In this way, the learner is brought into the central focus in learning theories as well as in the classroom. Currently, social constructivism is the single most important theory that informs not only EFL but also education in general. This course is not only about English teaching; rather, it aims at raising teachers’ (or would-be teachers’) consciousness about the differences between teaching and education, developing their critical thinking, making them reflect on the current situation of EFL in China, and encouraging them to explore possible remedies for the problems. It is hoped that the insights provided by this course will shed light on many of the issues and questions that we have about the current quality education in China. Contents Introduction Chapter 1 An introduction to educational psychology: behaviorism and cognitive psychology Chapter 2 Further schools of thought in psychology: humanism and social interactionism Chapter 3 What do teachers bring to the teaching-learning process? Chapter 4 What can teachers do to promote learning? Chapter 5 The contribution of the individual student to the learning process Chapter 6 What makes a person want to learn? Motivation in language learning Chapter 7 How does the leaner deal with the process of learning? Chapter 8 The place of tasks in the language classroom Chapter 9 The learning context Chapter 10 Putting it all together Overview of the Book Chapter 1 and 2—Get a bird’s view of some important theories of educational psychology, selectively introduces behaviorism, cognitive psychology, constructivism and social interactionism, and finally social constructivism. Chapter 3 and 4—About the teacher, teacher belief sand the role of mediator Chapter 5, 6 and 7—About the learner, influence of individual differences, motivation and strategy Chapter 8 About the task, which is the interface between the teacher and the learner Chapter 9—About the context, physical condition, interpersonal interaction and psychological atmosphere, laying emphasis on the individual learner’s feeling and understanding of the environmental factors. Chapter 10—A summary. About 10 points which can be taken as valuable advices for language teachers. Introduction Purpose: Explore the way of applying the contemporary theories of psychology to foreign language teaching These psychological theories: behaviorism, cognitive psychology, constructivism, humanism, social interactionism Humanism: Reflects learners’ personal feeling and personal needs; emphasizes the point that learning must have personal meaning; also holds the view of whole-person education (both affective and cognitive). Constructivism: Emphasizes that individual learners starts with personal experiences, and then construct their own understanding of the world and construction of their personal meanings, stresses learning process, and objects to simple transmission of knowledge. Social Interactionism: Emphasizes that learning and personal development takes place in the interaction with other people, and the teacher is an important interactional object of the learner. Social Constructivism: Integration and interpretation of the above theories. Here: “Social” is used in its narrow sense. i.e. the relationship between people and a group. It is no longer concerned with politics and economy. Gist of Social Constructivism: Knowledge is constructed by individual person, rather than passed on by other people; The construction takes place in the interaction with other people, and it is the result of social interaction. This model establishes its four essential elements: learner, teacher, task, context. Learner--center Teacher--mediator Task & context--external environment Pedagogical Implications 1. More emphases are laid on the subjectivity of learners, and the teacher should provide process and experience for the learners to conduct the construction of personal meaning. 2. Besides providing process and experience, the teacher plays the role of a mediator, guiding them in the appropriate response to the meaningful stimuli, helping them understand the significance and goal of the task, promoting them to take shape their own consciousness of self-control, self-confidence and provides them with favorable psychological environment, etc. 3. All these are done through the use of language. The challenge the teacher is faced with is that, he should not be satisfied with the routine classroom expression, he should also learn to use language to realize the function of mediation. 4. Foreign language teaching must have education value, must make learning process full of personal meaning. Communicative approach makes us understand “information gap”, and we learn to do “meaningful practices”. However, what kind of information and meaning are of value to the learner? The book tells us that , it must be related to the learners’ personal experiences and the present situation., which requires foreign language teachers to learn to understand learners’ individualities, uniqueness, their personal traits and needs. 5. The educational value of foreign language teaching also lies in the promotion of learners’ whole-person education. i.e. besides language learning itself, there are also the development of learning aptitude, positive affective factor and noble character. 6. Teacher’s own learning--- Social constructivism also applies to the interpretation of teacher’s cognitive process. In his own experience of teaching, his own understanding (knowledge) and belief of learning and teaching takes shape, on the basis of which his own teaching practice is guided. This book advocates teacher’s reflection on his own teaching practice, making those implicit personal beliefs embedded in teaching practice explicit, so that he will have a clear picture and a conscious knowledge of his own teaching and the importance of making modifications. As a result, teacher’s professional development is promoted. Chapter 1 Behaviorism and cognitive psychology *​ The positivist school *​ Premise—knowledge and facts exist within the real world and can be discovered by setting up experiments in which conditions are carefully controlled and where hypotheses are set up and tested. Behaviorism *​ Rooted in positivism *​ S-R/classical conditioning *​ Skinner: Emphasize the importance of reinforcement Explain learning in terms of operant conditioning *​ Audiolingual method Cognitive psychology *​ Information processing (attention, perception, memory) *​ Memory (short-term/working memory, long-term memory; Tulving, episodic/semantic memory) *​ Intelligence (Gardner MIT) MIT and its implications *​ Linguistic *​ Logical-mathematical *​ Spatial *​ Interpersonal *​ Intrapersonal *​ Musical *​ Bodily-kinesthetic *​ Naturalistic *​ existential Constructivism *​ Piaget *​ Emphasize the constructive nature of human learning process *​ Individuals are actively involved right from birth in constructing personal meaning *​ Stages: Sensori-motor stage Intuitive/preoperational stage Operational stage Concrete operational stage Formal operational stage Other terms *​ Maturation *​ Equilibration *​ Assimilation/accommodation *​ Adaptation Jerome Brunner *​ Discovery learning *​ Education of the whole person *​ Learn how to learn *​ 3 modes of thinking: enactive, iconic, symbolic George Kelly *​ Personal-construct theory *​ premise: man as scientist *​ Important implication: meaningful vs meaningless learning Chapter 2 Humanism and Social interactionism *​ Erik Erikson *​ Epigenetic principle *​ 8 stages: Trust/mistrust Autonomy/doubt Initiative/guilt Industry/inferiority Identity/role confusion Intimacy/sense of isolation Generavity/sense of stagnation Integrity/despair Abraham Maslow *​ Hierarchy of human needs: *​ Being needs: self-actualization aesthetic needs cognitive needs *​ Deficiency needs: need for self-esteem need for interpersonal closeness need for safety and security basic physiological needs Carl Rogers *​ Premise: Human beings have a natural potential for learning. Significant learning will only take place when the subject matter is perceived to be of personal relevance to the learner and when it involves active participation by the learner. Learning which is self-initiated and which involves feelings as well as cognition is most likely to be lasting and pervasive. *​ When there is a perceived threat to the learner’s self-image, resistance to learning is likely to occur. *​ Independence, creativity and self-reliance are most likely to flourish in learning situations where external criticism is kept to a minimum and where self-evaluation is encouraged. *​ The most socially useful kind of learning to prepare learners to cope with the demands of the modern world is learning about the process of learning itself, a continuing openness to experience and a preparedness to become involved in the process of change. Humanism in ELT *​ The Silent Way *​ Suggestopaedia *​ Community Language Learning All the three methods have their theoretical foundation in psychology rather than linguistics. Social interactionism *​ Lev Vygotsky Thought and Language (1962) Mind in Society (1978) *​ Mediation *​ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)---the layer of skill or knowledge which is just beyond that with which the learner is currently capable of coping. *​ Reuven Feuerstein *​ Anyone can become a fully effective learner *​ Structural cognitive modifiability *​ Instrumental enrichment *​ Cognitive map A Social Constructivist Model *​ Four key factors involved in the learning process---teachers, learners, tasks and contexts *​ Their relationship---teachers select tasks which reflect their beliefs about teaching and learning. Learners interpret tasks in ways that are meaningful and personal to them as individuals. The task is the interface between the teacher and learners. Teachers and learners also interact with each other; *​ the way that teachers behave in classrooms reflects their values and beliefs, and the way in which learners react to teachers will be affected by the individual characteristics of the learners and the feelings that the teacher conveys to them. These three elements: teacher, task and learner are in this way a dynamic equilibrium. *​ Moreover, the context in which the learning takes place will play an important part in shaping what happens within it. This includes the emotional environment, the physical environment , the whole school ethos, the wider social environment, the political environment and the cultural setting. This can be represented as a set of concentric circles, influencing each other, with the participants playing an ongoing part in shaping those environments. Chapter 3 What do teachers bring to the teaching-learning process? *​ A constructivist view of education: *​ 1 to empower learners to think for themselves *​ 2 to perpetuate in the next generation ways of acting and thinking that are judged the best by the present generation *​ In Glaserfeld’s view, a constructivist approach to education is best put into practice by presenting issues, concepts and tasks in the form of problems to be explored in dialogue rather than as information to be ingested and reproduced. *​ A constructivist view of teaching: *​ By Salmon *​ Not as the passing on of a parcel of objective knowledge, but as the attempt to share what you yourself find personally meaningful. *​ Constructivist approach emphasizes that fact that no two teachers and no two teaching situations are ever the same. And an important component of a constructivist approach to education is for teachers to become aware of what their own beliefs and views of the world are, which leas us into the notion of the reflective practitioner. The teacher as reflective practitioner *​ Teachers subject their everyday professional practice to ongoing critical reflection and make clear their own particular world view by means of such consideration. *​ The task of the reflective practitioner is to make tacit or implicit knowledge explicit by reflection on action, by constantly generating questions and checking our emerging theories with both personal past experience and with the reflections of others. *​ Schon’s distinction between reflection-in-action and reflection-on action Teachers’ beliefs *​ Beliefs about learners *​ Beliefs about learning *​ Beliefs about themselves *​ Beliefs about teaching Chapter 4 What can teachers do to promote learning? *​ Feuerstein’s theory of mediation *​ Differences between teacher as mediator and teacher as disseminator of information--- *​  1 Mediation must be concerned with empowering, with helping learners to acquire the knowledge, skills and strategies they will need in order to progress, to learn more, to tackle problems, to function effectively in a particular culture and a changing society, and to meet new, emerging and unpredictable demands. *​ 2 It is also concerned with helping learners to become autonomous, to take control of their own learning, with the fundamental aim of enabling them to become independent thinkers and problem solvers. Key features of mediation *​ Significance *​ Purpose beyond the here and now *​ Shared intention *​ A sense of competence *​ Control of own behavior *​ Goal-setting *​ Challenge *​ Awareness of change *​ A belief in positive outcomes *​ Sharing *​ Individuality *​ A sense of belonging Chapter 5 The contribution of the individual students to the learning process *​ Problems with the traditional notion of individual differences: *​ Traditional research on individual differences has been mainly concerned with measuring, labeling and grouping people. *​ The purpose of such research is usually not to identify how individuals differ but to group them according to perceived similarities. *​ The findings have been of limited practical value because they do not inform us how we can help any individual to become a more effective learner. *​ In many instances they do not even help us to improve the functioning of the groups that are identified by the research. *​ Research in this area is often based on a theory of learning which views people’s behavior as being heavily influenced by certain traits or attributes which are fixed. Suggested starting points: *​ We must start from a theory of learning that is robust and to which as researchers and teachers we subscribe. *​ Such a theory should enable us to focus on the uniqueness of individuals as well as helping us to see what they have in common. *​ It should also be a theory of how people change rather than how they start the same. *​ This should give rise to implications for action and intervention. *​ It should enable us also to support individuals in taking personal control of their own learning. *​ In doing so it must be connected to individuals’ views of themselves as learners. The development and importance of self-concept *​ Self-concept---a global term referring to the amalgamation of all our perceptions and conceptions about ourselves which give rise to our sense of personal identity. *​ More formally, it is defined as “the totality of a complex and dynamic system of learned beliefs which individual holds to be true about his or her personal existence and which gives consistency to is or her personality.” *​ As young children begin to construct a more or less stable view of the world, so they begin to develop also an awareness of themselves as individuals and an understanding of their place within that world. This developing self-concept in turn comes to influence the way in which they try to make sense of other aspects of their world. *​ The relationship is reciprocal: individuals’ views of the world influence their self-concept, while at the same time their self-concepts affect their views of the world. Both of these views will affect their success in learning situations. Locus of control (LoC) *​ A term derived from the Social Learning theory of Roter (1954), referring to a person’s beliefs about control over life events. *​ People who feel personally responsible for everything that happens to them in their lives are internalisers, while those people who feel that events in their lives are all determined by forces beyond their control, such as fate, luck, or other people, are termed externalisers. Attribution theory *​ Heider (1944,1958) *​ Weiner (1979, 1980, 1986) *​ It is about to what people attribute their success or failure on a particular language learning task. *​ Some possible attributions for success are: *​ I am good at learning languages; *​ I know how to do this sort of task; *​ I worked hard; *​ The task was easy. *​ Conversely, some attributions for failure are: *​ I’m no good at languages; *​ The task was boring; *​ I don’t like languages; *​ I didn’t try; *​ It was too difficult. *​ Essentially, Weiner suggested that, on the whole, people tend to refer to four main sets of attributions for their perceived successes and failures in life: ability, effort, luck and the perceived difficulty of the task with which they are faced. Chapter 6 What makes a person want to learn? Motivation in language learning *​ Dichotomy of motivation: *​ Intrinsic vs extrinsic *​ Instrumental vs integrative A cognitive view of motivation *​ From a cognitive perspective, the factor that is of central importance is that of choice; namely, people have choice over the way in which they behave and, therefore, have control over their actions. *​ A cognitive view of motivation centers around individuals making decisions about their own actions as opposed to being at the mercy of external forces over which they have no control. *​ However, there are limitations to taking a purely cognitive approach as such a view fails to take account of the influence of affective factors, the emotions, or of social and contextual influences. A social constructivist view of motivation *​ A constructivist view of motivation centers around the premise that each individual is motivated differently. People will make their own sense of the various external influences that surround them in ways that are personal to them, and they will act on their internal disposition and use their personal attributes in unique ways. *​ Therefore, what motivates one person to learn a foreign language and keeps that person going until he or she has achieved a level of proficiency with which he or she is satisfied will differ from individual to individual. Besides, an individual’s motivation is also subject to social and contextual influences. A proposed definition of motivation *​ Motivation may be construed as: *​ A state of cognitive and emotional arousal *​ which leads to a conscious decision to act, and *​ which gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort *​ in order to attain a previously set goal (or goals) A model of motivation *​ A three-stage model of m