Abstract: 

In China, English Listening is the essential course in the curriculum of English major education. However, traditional teaching mode can easily result in the gradual loss of engagement and motivation in learning. In this paper, I adopted qualitative approaches to do a case study to explore the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode in English Listening course to English majors in a teacher’s college in China through the lens of Constructivism Learning Theory. Through students’ reflective journals, I investigated how well this teaching mode have worked in promoting effective learning, that is, students’ ability of English listening and active learning. The findings showed this mode has positive influence on students in English listening class in terms of engagement, initiative and English literacy. 

Objective

A research by American foreign language pedagogy experts Rivers and Temperly (1978) showed that listening takes up 45% in people’s communicative activities. Rivers (1981) pointed out that the process of communication itself cannot be solely constituted by speaking alone, but only when what is said is understood by the other party. English majors, the same as their fellow undergraduates of other majors, haven’t received systematic education in English listening and speaking before college but only reading and writing, which are tested in the gaokao, the college entrance examination in China. And dumb English has long been a label for Chinese students. However, traditional college English listening classes, mandate for English majors in China, usually fall into the mechanical mode of teachers repeatedly playing audio and video files, and students repeatedly listening to them until they could find answers to the questions in the textbooks, which leads to the gradual loss of students’ engagement and passion in learning. There is a gap of knowledge connection to English language history, culture as well as politics in understanding the listening materials. The purpose of this case study is to explore how the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode in English Listening classes, provided by a teacher’s college in China, helps with English majors’ English language learning. 

Theoretical Framework: Constructivism Learning Theory

Constructivism represents ideas of conceptions of learning have historical roots in the works of Vygotsky (1962) and Piaget (1980). And constructivist conceptions of learning stress that learning outcomes should focus on the process of knowledge construction. Vygotsky (1966) proposed Zone of Proximal Development to state the space between the two levels of student development, the current level of the student and the possible level of development of the student, which is the potential obtained through teaching and learning. 

Constructivism refers a teacher as a facilitator to help students become active participants and make meaningful connections between prior knowledge and new knowledge in the process of teaching and learning. In an effort for education reforms for students are to succeed, a focus on student-centered teaching and learning can be seen as “the most important contribution of constructivism” (Bada & Olusegun, 2015, p. 66). In other words, students’ construction of the new knowledge is influenced by the knowledge they gained from previous experiences (Phillips, 1995), and that learning is affected by students’ attitudes and beliefs as well as the context in which the knowledge is taught. Phillips (1995) also suggested another notion of constructed knowledge that learning is active instead of passive. Students could remain active throughout the process of teaching and learning only when they can apply current understandings and note the consistency of prior and new knowledge.

In line with constructivism learning theory a good way to define learning, it is essential to create a learning environment in which students are exposing to the material being studied in order to promote students learning. That is, constructivist learning environment must provide the opportunity for active learning. Tam (2000) proposed four basic characteristics of constructivism learning environments: knowledge should be shared between teachers and students, teachers and students will share authority, the teacher will act as a facilitator or guide, and learning groups will consist of small numbers of students of heterogeneity.

Methods

The question that guided this study was How does ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to English Listening course to English majors promote active learning? To address this research question, I took a qualitative case study approach (Yin, 2018) to explore the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode in promoting students to active learning. In order to understand how did the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode promote students to active learning I focused the investigation on the areas of engagement, class activities, proposed learning materials and class assigned projects.

Site Selection 

This case study took place at the English department of a teacher’s college located in a mid-size city in north China. The English department serves over 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students. I chose the English department because it is the very first to implement the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to classes as well as their credible reputation. It is the English department holds the highest number of applicants of all the teacher’s colleges in the province.

Participant Selection

As researcher and one of the teachers on the team to implement the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to the English Listening classes to sophomore English majors, I have a good understanding of the English majors, and contact information of the English department teachers and administrators. Since the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode was only implemented to the English Listening classes to sophomore English majors, who had traditional English Listening classes during their freshman year, the only selection criteria were the 118 sophomore English majors of the year that the case study took place. 

Data Collection

This case study lasted for one year. Data collection from the sophomore English majors were through student’s reflection journals, which were collected online through providing students with digital link to type in their thoughts on biweekly basis. I also ensured all the students of their anonymity in the phase of participants recruitment and data collection in order to increase the rate of participation and decrease the possible influence of power dynamic to the validity of collected data. 

Findings

Students’ reflective journals, on one hand, revealed the main reasons that traditional English Listening class loss in engagement and active learning among students are lack of flexibility, content choices, student’s autonomy and interactivity among students and teachers. On the other hand, data revealed the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode promoted engagement and active learning in the perspectives of contents, learning strategies, learning outcomes and learning platform. 

Contents. Students in the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to English listening class enjoyed the priority of bringing in their own-chosen learning materials to the class. And the activities of defensing to compete for their materials to be the common listening material of the week improved their connoisseurship to English listening materials, knowledge of English culture and English-speaking ability. “I went to the library and searched on internet for the materials to the assignment weekly topic, I wanted the class to choose the material I proposed as the common listening material, so I introduced secret Santa in the presentation to interest the class.” (one reflective journal, 2018). ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode provides an online platform (Wechat study group) through which students could pose and interact with each other and teachers with more flexibility.

Learning strategies. Students in the ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to English listening class developed learning strategies of their own that enrich their English listening ability. Peer view on assignments, discussions on weekly topics and collaboration on team projects promoted students’ engagement and initiative to the class. “We decided to include vocabulary, grammar, culture and in the weekly presentation by team discussion, every other team member have talked during the discussion, so I knew I’d need to say something, and I wanted to contribute to the team. I suggested to add Q & A session, others all agree that I felt a great sense of belonging” (one reflective journal, 2018). ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode provides an online platform (Wechat study group) through which students could exchange opinions, documents, audio and video files within and across teams with high autonomy.

Learning outcomes. Students reported greater confidence, more comprehensive understanding and higher scores in English listening compare with those of their freshman year. Presentations on English culture, retelling of proposed listening materials, comment writing to the content of listening materials and Q&A sessions among students and teachers promoted students’ confidence and active learning. “I caught a piece of BBC news today! Standard news usually lost me because they are too fast.”, “I got the humor of Mark Twain with the wood-ward, and I explained it to others who didn’t during the after-listening discussion. I want them to enjoy the fun I got.” (reflective journals, 2018). ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode provides an online platform (Wechat study group) through which students present with higher interactivity.

Learning platform. Students reported intentions and expectations to extend ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode to other English classes. “I can share with my team and the rest of the class as soon as I find some interesting articles to our Wechat study group.”, “I enjoy proposing to the class with the listening materials I find.”, “I know I can go to the teacher for help when us students are presenting, debating and doing the projects, though she doesn’t talk as much as she used to be. She’d also join the discussion and share her ideas, or pop-up when we are off topic.” (reflective journals, 2018). ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode creates constructivist learning environment, in which teachers and students share knowledge and authority, both teachers and students acted as contributor to the class and to an certain extent, be facilitators or guides to each other, and students not only interacted with classmates but also fellow students across classes that form learning groups consist of students of heterogeneity.

Significance 

“If our efforts in reforming education for all students are to succeed, then we must focus on students” (Bada & Olusegun, 2015, p. 69-70). ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode creates constructivist learning environment that increasingly influential in the organization of classrooms and curriculum that can be adopted to teaching and learning to ensure the success for all students. Though ICT-assisted “Practice Circle” mode was only applied in English Listening class, this case study has a significant purpose as it explains the ways in which this mode can be an efficient way to promote active learning and extend to the teaching and learning of other English subjects class. This case study provides a good example to scholars, teachers and administrators with ICT-assisted teaching and learning mode to promote students succeed in English language learning.

References

Bada, S. O. & Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism Learning Theory: A Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education, 5, 66-70.

Piaget, J. (1980). The psychogenesis of knowledge and its epistemological significance. In Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (Ed.), Language and Learning: The Debate Between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (pp. 1-23). Harvard University Press.

Phillips, D.C. (1995). The good, the bad, and the ugly: The many faces of constructivism. Educational Researcher, 24 (7), 5-12.

Rivers, W. M. (1981). Teaching Foreign Languages Skills (2nd Ed.). University of Chicago Press.

Rivers, W. M., & Temperley, M. S. (1978). A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language. Oxford University Press.

Tam, M. (2000). Constructivism, Instructional Design, and Technology: Implications for Transforming Distance Learning. Educational Technology and Society, 3(2), 50-60.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1966). Play and its role in the Mental Development of the Child. (Nikolai Veresov, N. & Barrs, M. Trans.). International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(2), 3-25. (Original work published 1966). https://doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-040505036

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (Sixth edition). SAGE.