T.C.
SELÇUK UNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ YABANCI DİLLER EĞİTİMİ BÖLÜMÜ İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLİĞİ ANA BİLİM DALI
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CONSTRUCTIVISM IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR TURKISH
LEARNERS
Yüksek Lisans Tezi
Danışman
Yrd. Doç. Dr. Hasan ÇAKIR
Hazırlayan
Erol YILDIZ
T.C.
SELÇUK UNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ YABANCI DİLLER EĞİTİMİ BÖLÜMÜ İNGİLİZCE ÖĞRETMENLİĞİ ANA BİLİM DALI
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CONSTRUCTIVISM IN
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR TURKISH
LEARNERS
Yüksek Lisans Tezi
Danışman
Yrd. Doç. Dr. Hasan ÇAKIR
Hazırlayan
Erol YILDIZ
TABLE OF CONTENT ÖZET……….………7 ABSTRACT……….………..………8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….……….9 CHAPTER 1………10 INTRODUCTION………...10
1.0 General Background to the Study…….……….10
1.1 Aim of the Study………11
1.2 Scope of the Study……….………11
1.2.1 Problem Statement………11
1.2.2 Research Questions and Assumptions………….……….12
1.3 Limitations……….13
CHAPTER 2………14
THEORETICAL BASIS………..….……...………….….14
2.0.English Language Teaching: General Basis………14
2.1 Berief History of English Language Teaching….………...………14
2.2 Science and Language Teaching……….………16
2.3 Approach-Method –Technique:Antony’s Model….………...…………18
2.4 Richard and Rodger’s Model………...………...…………19
2.5 Common Approaches and Methods in ELT……...………20
3.0 English Lanuage Teaching in Turkey……….………23
3.1 The Place of ELT in Turkish Educational System………..………24
3.3 The Problem of ELT in Turkey………..…………29
4.0 Constructivism………..…….………30
4.1 Brief History of Constructivism……….………31
4.2 Philosophical Fundementals ……….…..………33 4.2.1 Educational Philosophy………34 4.2.2 Episthemology………..………34 4.2.2.1 Exegenenous Constructivism………35 4.2.2.2 Endegeneous Constructivism………36 4.2.2.3 Dialectic Constructivism………..………38
4.3 Constructivist Learning Theory………..………39
4.3.1 Precedes of Constructivist Learning ………...………42
4.3.2 Teaching Strategies of Constructivism………...………47
4.3.3 Constructivist Teaching Techniques………..……… 51
4.3.4 Constructivist Evaluation………..……….………58
5.0 The Application of Constructivism in English Language Teaching …………..…60
5.1 Approach………61
5.1.1 Language Theory………..………61
5.1.2 Learning Theory………62
5.2 Design………..………64
5.2.1 Objectives of the Method….………...…….………65
5.2.3 Learning and Teaching Activities………67
5.2.4 Roles of The Teacher………..……….……68
5.2.5 Roles of The Students…..……….……69
5.2.6 Roles of The Materials….………70
5.2.7 The Role of The Mother Tounge…..………71
5.2.8 Error Correction……….……….….…71 5.2.9 Language Skills……….………..……72 5.2.10 Evaluation……….………..74 5.3 Procedures………..….………75 CHAPTER 3………...……….79 METHODOLOGY………..………79 6.0 Implementation………79
6.1 Data Collection Procedure …….………79
6.1.1 Determination of Experiment and Control Groups………79
6.1.2 Subject Matter………....………...79
6.1.3 The Plan of The Implementation………...…………80
6.1.3.1 Characteristics of the Learners………80
6.1.3.2 Needs Analysis………..………..………81
6.1.3.3 Objectives……..………..………81
6.1.3.4 Teaching and Learning Activities……….………82
6.2 Data Analysis Procedure……….85
6.2.1 Results of the Experiment Group……….……….………85
6.2.2. Results of the Control Group…...………86
6.2.3 Interpretations of the Results………..…………...……87
7.0 Reflections………..………88
7.1 Learners’ Feelings, Attitudes and Thoughts…………..……….88
7.2 Teacher’s Feelings, Attitudes and Thoughts………89
CHAPTER 4……….90
CONCLUSION……….……90
8.0 Summary and Discussion of the Findings……….90
8.1 Implications of the Results……….91
8.2 Suggestions for Further Studies….………91
APPENDICES……….………93
APPENDIX A: The Pre-test…….………..………....93
APPENDIX B: Mechanic Drills…….………..……….…….97
APPENDIX C: Meaningful Drills………….………98
APPENDIX D: Role Cards………….…..………....……100
APPENDIX E: Project………..……….……...……100
ÖZET
Gelişme, çevremizde oluşan değişiklikleri takip etmeyi ve var olan yapılarımızı bu değişikliklere göre yeniden yapılandırmayı gerektirir. Bu aynı zamanda öğrenmenin takip ettiği yoldur. Yapılandırmacılık son zamanlarda sıkça tartışılan bu değişikliklerden biridir. Diğer yandan, yabancı bir dille iletişim kurabilme gerekliliği nerdeyse herkesin kabul ettiği bir husustur. Ancak, İngiliz dilini ülkemizde Türk öğrencilere öğretme başarımızın arzuladığımız kadar olduğunu söylemek mümkün değildir. Bu çalışma, bu başarısızlıktaki en önemli etkenin yabancı dil sınıflarında öğrenme yaşantıları oluşturmak için takip edilen yöntem yada yaklaşımın olduğunu kabul etmektedir. Dolayısıyla, bu çalışmanın amacı felsefesinden pratiğine kadar yapılandırmacılık kuramını incelemek ve söz konusu sorunu çözmek için bu yaklaşımın İngilizce sınıflarımızda uygulanmasının mümkün olup olmadığını bulmak olacaktır. Bu amaçla bu çalışmada cevabı aranacak sorular şunlardır:
Yapılandırmacılık nedir ve eğitim açısından neler önermektedir?
Yapılandırmacılık kuramı İngiliz Dilinin Türk Öğrencilere öğretiminde uygulanabilir mi?
Yapılandırmacılık kuramının İngiliz Dili Öğretiminde uygulanması bu alandaki başarımızı etkiler mi?
Birinci bölüm; çalışmanın amacını, problemin içeriğini ve ifadesini, hipotezlerini ve sınırlarını içerir.
İkinci bölüm, İngiliz Dili Öğretiminin, yapılandırmacılığın ve bu kuramın İngiliz Dili Öğretiminde uygulanmasının kuramsal temellerini açıklar.
Üçüncü bölüm, kuramsal olarak ortaya konan metodun uygulanmasını yöntem, sonuçlar, analiz ve tartışmalarıyla ortaya koyar.
Dördüncü ve son bölümde, ortaya çıkan sonuçlar değerlendirilir. Elde edilen sonucun, İngiliz Dilinin Türk öğrencilere öğretiminde kullanılması ve uygulanmasında yararlı olabilecek önerilerle sona erer. Bu bölümün sonunda ekler ve kaynakça kısımları da yer almaktadır.
ABSTRACT
Development requires to follow the changes around us and to rebuild the existent structures in accordance with these changes. This is also the way learning follows. Constructivism is one of these developments having been often discussed recently. On the other hand, being able to communicate in a foreign language is an issue whose necessity has been accepted by almost everybody in our country. However, the level of our success in teaching English to Turkish learners in our country cannot be said to be as well as desired. This study assumes that the most significant factor in this failure is the method or the approach that are followed to create learning experiences in our foreign language classrooms. As a result, the aim of this study is to investigate constructivism from philosophy to practice and question the possibility of its implementation in our English classes to solve this problem. With this aim in mind, the questions to be answered in this study are the following:
What is constructivism and what does it offer education?
Can constructivism be implemented in teaching English to Turkish learners?
Does the implementation of constructivism affect our success in ELT?
Chapter one consists of the aim and the scope of the study, the statement of the problem, the hypothesis and the limitations.
Chapter two deals with the theoretical basics of ELT, constructivism and the implementation of constructivism in ELT.
Chapter three handles the implementation of the new method regarding its methodology, data collection and data analysis processes.
In the last chapter, the results were evaluated. It ends with some recommendations that can be benefical in using and applying the obtained result at the end of the study. Appendices and bibliography ara also attached at the end of the study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is a debt for me to state my great depth of gratitude to my thesis supervisor Assist. Prof. Dr. Hasan ÇAKIR for his expert advice, feedback and encouragement while writing this thesis. I would also like to extend my appreciation to Assist. Prof. Dr. A . Hamit ÇAKIR, Assist. Prof. Dr. A. Kadir ÇAKIR, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ece SARIGÜL, and Assist. Prof. Dr. A. Ali ARSLAN for their comments.
Special thanks go to my students at Cumhuriyet Elementary School for their participation and priceless understanding.
Lastly, many thanks go to my wife and son, who have always been patient and supported me throughout my master programme.
INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1
1.0 General Background to the Study
One of the qualities wanted in today’s world is to be able to communicate in a foreign language, and it has been English for decades. Being aware of this fact, our educational system gives great importance to foreign language teaching to our generations at all its levels. However, the results have never been as planned and expected when looked back. The reasons for this reality are many.
To begin with, the learners do not generally have the chance to perform what they have learned in the foregin language courses out of the classroom. That is to say, the learners cannot practise their knowledge in the situations where the target language is spoken. They should either go abroad or satisfy themselves with the foreign language broadcasts. Another reason is about the motivation and desire of our learners. Most learners come to the language classroom unwillingly. They learn English since the system requires but not because they want. This results in failure in language learning. In addition, the insufficiencies in our educational system support this failure. For example, several students do not study English because they have no English teachers. Sometimes the teachers whose profession is not English language and its teaching try to teach English to the learners. Consequently, a kind of learner who has never heard or pronunced an English word occurs. They learn English as they learn history or geography. Our schools are full of the examples of this sort of applications. Similarly, the time for language learning in our schools is very little while the subject matter to be acquired is very much. The teachers are given a coursebook to be completed in a year four lesson hours a week. As a result, teachers jump the subjects before the students learn them properly. However, the last and the most important reason is related to the methods and approaches implemented in language classrooms. In fact, language teachers are furnished with all the methods and approaches the foreign language teaching history has. Nevertheless, the teachers do not apply what they have learned but teach how they themselves learned English. Also, most foreign language teachers stop following the recent findings and developments in their branch and in educational disciplines. This results in cliche and fossilized learning experiences for even the willing learners. In time, they lose their motivation too.
Consequently, the most important factor for the failure of English language teaching is the poorness of teaching methods and approaches in our classrooms.
A recent and mostly stated trend in educational world is constructivism. Therefore, this paper investigates the English language teaching, its history, its teaching in our country, what we lack and deals with this new paradigm whose roots go back to Socrates from philosophy to practice in detail and creates a new language teaching method in the light of constructivism. Lastly, the results of the application of the method on some elementary school students, the views, feelings and attitudes of the students and the teacher are discussed in the study.
1.1 Aim of the Study
The purpose of the study is to search whether constructivism can be applied as a new approach in foreign language teaching or not. Whether this discipline inspires an innovative method and related techniques for foreign language instruction or whether it will enable foreign language teachers to design their classrooms using the present methodology for better results or not will be examined. Also, whether the implementation of constructivist language teaching method will result in more success in language teaching or not will be examined in this study. Lastly, whether its application will be practical and economical or suitable to our learners and teachers or not will be questioned.
1.2 Scope of the Study
1.2.1 Problem Statement
The most common complaint in our country is that our learners have been taught English as a foreign language in many years in all levels of our educational system but even the ones having graduated from a university have never been able to communicate in English either orally or written as far as desired. No matter how well they have mastered the grammar of English, they cannot apply it in real life. Therefore, what we lack is the fact that our learners are injected the rules of the language but they cannot use them outside the classroom.
Why our efforts result in such a disappointment is related to our way of exposing our learners to the foreign language. Traditional foreign language classrooms in our country are dominated by teacher-centered instruction and passive learners. The learners are expected to perform certain structures without knowing their function and purpose. The accumulation of
these unconnected structures in the minds of learners becomes useless in time since they are not structured appropriately. What constructivism offers us is the conscious internalisation of language knowledge in connection with the prior knowledge and experience of the learners. As a result, more retainable, individual, subjective and clearly structured language knowledge occurs in the minds of the learners. Hanley summarises what constructivism offers with the following words:
Focusing on a more educational description of constructivism, meaning is intimately connected with experience. Students come into a classroom with their own experiences and a cognitive structure based on those experiences. These preconceived structures are either valid, invalid or incomplete. The learner will reformulate his/her existing structures only if new information or experiences are connected to knowledge already in memory. Inferences, elaborations and relationships between old perceptions and new ideas must be personally drawn by the student in order for the new idea to become an integrated, useful part of his/her memory. Memorized facts or information that has not been connected with the learner's prior experiences will be quickly forgotten. In short, the learner must actively construct new information onto his/her existing mental framework for meaningful learning to occur.1
As summarised above, the problem is the question why our learners are not able to communicate in English after a long period of instruction in our schools. Why they cannot perform what they have learned in the classroom in real life and why they easily forget all their language knowledge are the main concern of this study.
1.2.2 Research Questions and Assumptions of the Study
Regarding the problem statement above, the research questions and the assumptions of the study are the following:
RQ1-Can constructivism be implemented in teaching English to Turkish learners?
RQ2-Does the implementation of constructivism affect our success in ELT?
A1-The available status of English language teaching in Turkey is deficient in teaching learners to communicate in English.
A2-The common source of this problem is mostly related to the methodology applied in the classrooms.
A3-The methodology applied in our language classes is mostly dependent on Grammar Translation Method that is dominated by teacher-centered activities and that lacks student activation.
A4-The available language classroom atmosphere in our schools ignores such learner-oriented isssues as motivation, interest, need, participation and prior knowledge.
A5-Constructivism which approaches knowledge as a subjective phenomenon proposes a language classroom that is arranged according to the needs, interests and existing experience and knowledge of the learners.
A6-Constructivism suggests that knowledge not be transfered by the teacher but knowledge be constructed by the learners themselves through the activities that include problem solving, cooperation, production and reflection.
A7- It is possible to apply constructivism in English Language Teaching.
A8-Possible constructivist language teaching methodology will solve the present problem of ELT in Turkey.
1.3 Limitations
Some of the expected limitations of the study are the followings:
1.As known, Turkey is a very big country with a large population which has different features. Therefore, the samples of the study may not reflect all of these features.
2.This study will focus on the application of constructivism which requires the learners to be responsible of their own learning. Therefore, the possible methodology may be very time-consuming.
3.This study will propose activites that will decrease teacher dominance in the classroom but that will make students more active. New roles of both teachers and students may create adaptation problems.
4.Possible metholody will require more material and technological device. These may not be possible for all classes of our country.
CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL BASIS
2.0.English Language Teaching: General Basis 2.1 Brief History of English Language Teaching
Knowledge of a discipline is accumalative and comes into being as a result of different answers to problematic questions of the discipline. At first, the number of these questions may be only one, but it may increase depending upon the given answers. However, this process is like a “pendulum” movement in the field of language teaching. That is, as Prator explains:
It is the tendency to swing from one extreme of opinion to the other. For example, the use of mother tongue in the foreign language classroom has been successively emphasized, banned, required, and barely tolerated 2.
Nevertheless, the actors of language teaching have enriched their answers with either their experiences, observations or scientific findings.
Richard&Rodgers run a sharp eye over the history of language teaching through a perspective ranging from the 17th to 20th centuries in their book tittled as “Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching”3. What they recognised as a result of their survey is that the novelties in ways of teaching foreign languages have been stimulated by the same issues which are common even today. In fact, today’s disagreement results from the answers given to the inquries that have been prevailing the history of language teaching. When Latin lost its power in the 16th century, it became to be seen as a curriculum subject. Its grammar and rhetoric were accepted as the topics to be instructed in foreign language classroom from 17th to 18th centuries. The learners of the “grammar schools” were taught mechanic Latin grammar, its declentions, conjugations, translation and so on. The proposals for alteration in the way of teaching Latin were suggested by Roger Ascham and Montaigne in the 16th century and Comenius and John Locke in the 17th century. Nonetheless, the same method was applied to teach “modern” languages when they became the part of European School’s
2 Parator, C.H. In search of a method. In K. Croft (Ed.),Readings on English as a second language (pp.13-25). Cambridge,M.A.: Withrop Publishers. 1975 p.19.
3 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
curriculums. Before the 19th century, this method had been systematized for foreign language courses. Grammar points were the main concern of an average 19th century textbook. The rules and their uses were clarified through a lot of examples. The goal was to enable students to implement a particular rule through convenient drills. This way of teaching has been called The Grammar Tranlation Method since then. It occupied the foreign language teaching history from the 1840s to the 1940s and its reshaped versions are still used in some places of the world .4
The mid-nineteenth century witnessed some teaching experts with their unique ways for the improvement in teaching of modern languages. Among them were C.Marcel, T Predengast and F.Gouin. C.Marcel(1793-1896) focused on the significance of meaning in learning and put reading skills before the others. T. Predengast (1806-1886) became known as the first to mention about the use of contextual and situatinal cues as children did while acquiring their mother tongues. As for F.Gouin (1831-1896), he developed his way depending upon children’s use of language to carry out series of actions. But the innovations of these reformists were out of the settled educational frame and were not applied. Nevertheless, these efforts began to fruit when they encountered the linguists.Their studies gave way to the birth of the Reform Movement. The main reformists were Henry Sweet, Wilhelm Vietör and Paul Passy, whose contributions made the labour of innovators more belivable.1886 was the year The Internatıonal Phonetic Association was founded and its Phonetic Alphabet was created. The attempts of these reformists led to some scientific principles on which they could build a new approach. Still, these assertions did not mean a stable method to be applied for teaching a foreign language. What they gave birth was finally was “the natural method” which was finally called as “The Direct Method”. The decline of it coincided with the 1920s. The following effect was by a report which was commenced in 1923 and which deduced that no method could reach success on its own. Known as Coleman Report, this study suggested that reading be the ultimate aim of foreign language teaching. In the following years, applied linguists coordinated the principles of The Reform Movement and created the The British Approach, which led to the raise of The Audolingualism in the USA and The Oral Approach in Britain.
4 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
As a consequence of this survey, Richards& Rogers reached the fact that the history of language teaching is made up of the different answers given to similar questions . 5
2.2 Science and Language Teaching
To define what language is is really difficult and no matter how carefully all features are considered, it is not inevitable to forget one side of it. The fundemental point of defining the language phonemenon is the effort to answer such questions as “What is the nature of the language?”, “How does communication among people come into being?”. These questions are as broad as the question “What is substance?” and it seems impossible to answer them without dividing them into smaller parts. Physics divided its question into smaller parts and has been trying to reach the whole by answering small questions one by one. Linguistics, defined as the scientific work of natural humane language, also follows a similar way. Beginning from the smallest part of language, sound, linguistics tries to answer the basic questions by investigating all meaning details and sentence structures.
So, “what is language teaching?”, “what is its relation to science?” may be the first questions to start with. Language teaching is both an art and a science. “It is a highly skilled activity that can be learned by careful observation and patient practice. However, language teaching is a science”6, the subject matter of which is language. This subject matter is also the matter of linguistics. Therefore, linguistics is the main source science branch of language teaching. Linguistics provides a growing body of scientific knowledge about language which can guide the activity of language teacher. There can be no systematic improvement in language teaching without reference to the knowledge about language which linguistics gives us.”7
The aim of linguistics is not only supplying knowledge for language teaching. It has broader objectives. Choamsky expresses this:
Why study language… One reason for studying language_ and for me personally the most compelling reason_ is that it is tempting to regard language, in the traditional phrase, as ‘a mirror of mind’8
5Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986.pp. 5-11. 6 Demirel, Ö. ELT Methodology. Ankara:Usem.1992.p.1
7 Demirel, Ö. ELT methodology. Ankara:Usem.1992.p.1
8 Akmajian,A.,Demers,R.A.,Farmer,A.K.&Harnish,R.B.Linguistics:An Introduction To Language And Communication.London:The MIT Press,1994. p.9
So, discovering how humane mind works through understanding their language is the fundemental objective of linguistics. This is also the answer to another small question: “Why do we teach language?”. Nevertheless, the results of linguistic studies benefit language teaching very much. At that point, “applied linguistics” is at work. This sub-branch of linguistics helps language teaching by explaining langage structures and their meanings, shortly, the nature of language, to the language teacher.
After understanding the nature of the language, language teaching focuses on another important question: “How to teach language?”. At this point, psychology helps language teachers. Like other teachers, language teachers’main concern is with people, so language teachers consult psychology to understand how people learn, what affects their learning, how they learn best, etc.
Consequently, the relation between science and language teaching has two basic scientific dimensions: linguistics and psychology. The figure below summarizes this relation:9
9 Demirel, Ö. ELT methodology. Ankara:Usem.1992.p.4 LINGUISTICS
• Descriptions of Languages • Assumptions on Language and Language Learning
PSYCHOLOGY • Learning Theories LANGUAGE Rules and Assumptions Learning Principles Student needs Learning Situations APPLIED LINGUISTICS Objectives Assessment Approaches Methods Techniques & Media TEACHER TRAINER
Figure 1:The relation between Language, Linguistics Psychology and Language Teaching
2.3 Approach-Method –Technique: Antony’s Model
“How should we teach a foreign language?” has been the question of the whole history of language teaching which is full of several ways named as “approach” or “method”. The clear distinct definition of these terms firstly was expressed by Anthony. According to him, the organization is like a pyramid. Techniques constitute a method which is in harmony with an approach. A group of related hypotheses regarding the “nature” of language and language learning is named as an approach. It is unquestionable and it is for the explanation of the material to be studied. The general design for the exhibition of the language points, each part of which is consistent with the approach behind, is called the method. Whereas an approach is unquestionable, the method is sequential. Several methods can be created from an approach. Lastly, a tool in the classroom turns out to be a technique. It is a kind of tool or apparatus used to accomplish a goal. Techniques are to be in agreement with a method, thus corresponding to an approach at the same time. 10
What is in evidence in Anthony’s description is the move from the abstract to the concrete. It is like an organism. At the top does the brain take place and contol the body in the middle. Yet the number of bodies may be more than one provided that they obey the rules of the brain. The movements to achieve the aims of the brain constitute the part at the bottom. The organism may achieve these aims by means of several movements. Thus, the abstract stimuli in the brain become visible through these movements. We can see this process in the figure 2:
Figure 2:Approach-Method-Technique Pyramid
10 Anthony, E.M. Approach,Method and Technique.English Language Teaching.1963,17: pp63-7 Brain
Body(ies)
2.4 Richard and Rodger’s Model
Richards & Rodgers improved Anthony’s organisation to investigate and compare the methods more comprehensively. They see approach as the collection of assumptions about the nature of language and language learning and as the source of guideliness of the methods. Design is regarded as the link between an approach and techniques. It is composed of such elements as the objectives, the syllabus, types of learning/teaching activities, the roles of learners, the roles of the teacher and the roles of the instructional materials. Techniques are labelled as “procedure” in which they discuss every behaviour or instrument in the classroom.11
a. A theory of the nature of language a.The general and specific objectives of the method a. Classroom tecniques, practices b.Syllabus model and behaviours observed when b.A theory of nature of language learning c.Types of learning and teaching activities the method is used
d.Learner roles e.Teacher roles
f.The role of instructional materials
Figure 3:Summary of elements and subelements that constitute a method12
This improvement seems to be more accurate but it is still lack of such curriculum elements as “goals” and “evaluation”. They mention objectives but objectives derive from more general goals. Furthermore, without evaluation we cannot check whether the method reaches its goals or not; we cannot make necessary changes. Therefore, it is necessary for the teacher to consider these elements while forming his/her method.
11 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986.pp-16-29. 12 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986.p.28.
METHOD
2.5 Common Approaches and Methods in ELT
The chronologic order of the major methods is the following: the Grammar Traslation Method, The Direct Method, The Audiolingual Method, Communicative Approach, The Humanistic Aproaches: “Silent Way, Community Language Learning, Suggestopedia, Total Physical Response” and the Natural Approach.
In the Grammar Translation Method, reading literature stands as the major objective of studying a foreign language, the justification of which is the intellectual development the study itself will provide for the learners. The best way to do this is Grammar Translation in which analyses of grammar rules are explained in detail and followed by the implementation of the rules in the translation of the given literary text into the mother tongue. The major focus is on reading and writing. Deduction is the way to present grammar.13 As its name suggests, the focus of the GTM is on grammar and translation. GTM has come to be known as the method which existed as a result of knowledge and experience accumulation of language teaching phenomenon. So, it is not wrong to say that it is the work of expert-apprentice relationship.
As for The Direct Method, students are believed to be in need of correlating meaning and the target language directly. To achieve this, teachers exhibit the meaning through making use of real object, visuals or pantomime instead of translating it into the mother tongue of the learners when he presents a new phrase, vocabulary item or structure. This provides real-life situations. Induction is the way through which grammar is presented.14 Manipulation of visuals, maps, charts and demonstarion are utilized to clarify meaning.
Following The Direct Method, The Audiolingual Method came into existence down to the influence of Behaviorism. Richards&Rodgers indicate what takes place in an Audolingual classroom:
Dialogues and drills form the basis of audiolingual classroom. Dialogues provide the means of contextualizing key structures and illustrate situations in which structures may be used to as well
13 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986.pp.3-4.
14 Larsen-Freeman, D. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1986. p.24
as some cultural aspects of the target language. Dialogues are used for repetition and memorizaiton. Correct pronounciation, stres, rhythm, intonation are emhasized. After a dialogue has been presented and memorized, specific grammatical patterns in the dialogue are selected and become the focus of the various kinds of drill and pattern-practice exercises. 15
Excluding The GTM, all the other methods have objectives to enable the learners to communicate effectively. This objective is on the peak in The Communicative Approach. Larsen –Freeman brings light to this issue:
The most obvious charesteristics of the Communicative Approach is that almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role-plays, and problem solving tasks. 16
The teacher is expected to manipulate all materials like pictures, charts, maps, real objectives especialy authentic materials such as bus tickets, menus, newspaper-magazine cut-outs, timetables and so on to create social and functional communicative activities with a certain problem to be solved through interaction of pairs or groups.
Under the umbrella of The Humanistic Aproach, learners and their features as a whole person began to shape the principles of the methods. For instance, with Gattegno(1976)’s words, The Silent Way requires the students to be “independent, autonomous and responsible for their own learning” 17(quoted in Richars&Rodgers). The lesson starts with the teacher’s action of pointing at vocuous symbols on a wall chart. In fact, they indicate the syllables of the spoken language. These sounds are read aloud by the students first as a whole class then individually. If the target language consists of a sound which the mother tongue does not have, the students’ attention is directed on the new sound silently and a clear audible example is given by the teacher. Or, the teacher does not sound any word. The second stage involves a second set of charts and focuses on varied words chosen from common vocabulary. In the following stage, the teacher uses “rods” with different colour and length. The students are made to talk about various structures with the help of charts and rods accompanied by the
15 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986.p.53.
16 Larsen-Freeman, D. Techniques and Principles in LanguageTteaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1986. p.132
17 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
teacher’s gestures, sometimes a few spoken words. The language item is numbers and colours at the beginning but it “moves into” all other grammatical patterns.18
Suggestopedia is known for its distinctive clasroom environment techniques. As Larsen-Freeman points out, the extraordinary classroom environment is achieved by the use of dim lights, soft music, cushioned armchairs and walls decorated with scenes from the country of the target language. Also, some posters involving structural information about the target language are hanged on the walls for the benefit of peripheral learning. This atmosphere enables the teacher to provide positive suggestion. Other techniques for suggestion are visualization and choosing a new identity. Through visualization students are taken to described scene or event and given an opportunity to choose a new identity in this situation. Students play their roles as appropriately as their new identity and situation requieres. The receptive phase of the lesson is divided into concerts: in the first concert , the teacher presents the story in a dialogue, explains grammatical points and reads the dialogue dramatically with the accompaniment of classical music and teacher’s voice follows the rises and falls of the music. In the second concert, students close their eyes and listen to the teacher reading the dialogue at a normal rate of speed with musical accompaniment. On the following day, the students read the dialogue in different manners. Lastly, students engage in various activities including singing, dancing, dramatization and games 19
Community Language Learning is the method which is shaped mostly by the Humanistic Approach. As Moskowitz explored, “ CLL techniques also belong to a larger set of foreign language practices sometimes described as humanistic techniques” (quoted in Richards&Rodgers). Rodgers & Richards explain CLL procedures as the following:
...A group of learners sit in circle with the teacher standing outside the circle; a student whispers a message in the native language(L1) the teacher translates it into the foreign language(L2); the student repeats the message in the foreign language with the teacher’s help; students reflect about their feelings...20
18 Stevick, E.W. Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House, 1980.pp.43-44. 19 Larsen-Freeman, D. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1986. pp.83-6
20 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
The other techniques of CLL include translation, group work, recording, transcription analysis, reflection and observation, listening and free conversation21
Based on “the comprehension approach” Asher’s Total Phisical Response gives importance to listening comprehension at the beginning of the instruction as this is the way children acquire their mother tongues. Language is taught quickly through body movements. Students learn by both observing actions and carrying out the actions themselves22 The function of the actions is to make the commands concrete and traced in the learner’s mind.
Our last method, the Natural Approach, has been built upon five hypotheses. The acqusition-learning hypothesis implies that language competence can be gained through two ways: (1) acqusition, the unconscious, natural way and (2) learning, the conscious and formal way. The natural order hypothesis asserts that some structures are acquired earlier than others. The monitor hypothesis claims that our language is triggered by the acquired system, so our conscious learning comes out later to check what we have said. The fourth one, the input hypothesis proclaims that the language content beyond our current level should be comprehended in order to progress. Lastly, the effective filter hypohesis conveys that learners’ attituditional variations should be minimized 23 Therefore what the teacher is to do is to arrange the class in a way that students can aquire the language through acqusition activities like dialogs, interviews, reference ranking, personal charts and tables, revealing information about yourself, activities using imagination tasks and series, developing speech for particular situations, advertisements, games and content activities24
3.0 English Language Teaching in Turkey
After a short overview upon worldwide theoretical frameworks of English Language Teaching, it will be better to turn the spotlight on the perception and application of ELT in Turkey. Turkey, which is preparing itself to enter a big social, economic and politic organisation, that is to say, to European Union, is really aware of the importance of educating its citizens and new generations for the culture and language of this new union. So as to
21 Richards,C.R.&Rodgers,T.S.Approaches And Methods In Language Teaching:A
Description And Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1986. p.120.
22 Larsen-Freeman, D. Techniques and Principles in LanguageTteaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1986. pp.109-114.
23 Krashen, S.D.& TErrel, T.D. The Natural Approach: Language Acqusation in the Classroom. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall,1983. pp.26-39.
24 Krashen, S.D.& TErrel, T.D. The natural approach: Language Acqusation in the Classroom. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall,1983. pp.95-124..
enable the whole country, it emphasises the necessity of learning at least one foreign language. The first foreign language to come to the minds has always been English for years. Therefore, English Language Teaching has been a basic course at all stages of Turkish Educational System. However, whether these thoughts have come true as well as constituted in minds is a real question and this question is the main focus of this part.
3.1 The Place of ELT in Turkish Educational System
The foreign languages to be taught at primary and high schools are determined by the Council of Ministers with the suggestions and thoughts of the Council of National Security.25 As a result of these decisions, English, German and French are mostly taught as a foreign language in all Turkish private and state primary and high schools.
Because of globilasation, the most common foreign language to be learned and taught at international platform is English. English has also gained a place at the first row in Turkey since Turkish people have been trying to adapt themselves to the changing world and since the needs of Turkish people for a foreign language has changed in the last century. Everybody accepts a tendency towards communicating in English both orally and in written form. At schools, almost all of the students (98,4 %) learn English as the first foreign language. German and French, on the other hand, are not preferred by the students (1,6 %). They are learned generally as the second foreign languages.26
According to the educational reform that has been applied since 1997-1998 Educational Year, the first step of the primary school education ( the first five years) has been accepted not to be the level at which only the mother tounge is taught but according to the Primary School Weekly Course Table that has been applied since that educational year, foreign language course (English, German, Franch) was obliged to be taught starting from the fourth grade students. According to this table, foreign language course is two hours at the fourth and fifth grades and four hours at the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. Besides this, at least one hour; at most three hour- additional foreign language course can be given. Look at the table below:27
25 T.C. Resmi Gazete (19.10.1983), 18196. 24.
26 Genç, A. Foreign Language in Elementary Scholols (İlköğretimde Yabancı Di)l. Buca Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 10, 1999.299-307.
4th Grade 5th Grade 6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade
Compulsory 2 2 4 4 4
Additional 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2
Optional - - 2 2 2
Table 1 Weekly Foreign Language Course Programme at Primary Schools
After the Educational Reform in 1997, foreign language course was taught for four hours at the ninth grades of general high schools. Also, students have the opportunity to choose two-hour-additional foreign language course among the optional courses. Starting from the 10th grade, the students at the high schools are divided into different departments such as Social Sciences, Science, Turkish Mathematics, Foreign Language, Art, Sports. The students in Science, Social Sciences, Turkish Mathematics, Art and Sports have four hour- compulsory and two hour- additional foreign language course at the 10th and 11th grades. As for the students in Foreign language department, they could have 8 hour- compulsory and 4 hour- additional foreign language course in the 10th and 11th grades. Look at the table below:
General High School 9 10 11 S/SS/TM/A/S FL S/SS/TM/A/S FL Compulsory 4 4 8 4 8 Additional 2 2 4 2 4
Table 2 Weekly Foreign Language Course Programme at General High Schools
In our country, in addition to these general high schools, there were some high schools (Super High Schools or Anatolian High Schools) that were opened to teach some courses in a foreign language or to teach a foreign language more dominantly. Anatolian High Schools were a type of school of seven years that had secondary and high school levels with a
prepatory class of 24 hour-dense foreign language course before the reform in 1997. After primary school education became eight years, the secondary level of these schools was eliminated and the prepatory class started at the beginning of the high school education. This resulted in a type of high school with four years including a prepatory class. As a result, the foreign language course programme in these schools offered 24 hours in the prepatory class, 8 hours in the 9th grade. As for the 10th and 11th grades, Science, Social Science, Turkish Mathematics, Art and Sports Departments had 4 hour-foreign language course. On the other hand, the Foreign Language Department students had 10 hour-foreign language course in the 10th and 11th grades besides two hour-additional foreign language course at the 10th grade and four hour-additional course per week at the 11th grade. To see the summary of the programme, look at the table below:
Table 3 Weekly Foreign Language Course Programme at Super and Anatolian High Schools
Apart from these high schools, in such schools as Science High Schools, foreign language was taught dominantly. In the programme of these high schools, twenty four hour dense foreign language was taught in the prepatory classes. In the 9th grade students used to have 6 hour-foreign language course. In the 10th and 11th grades, they used to have four-hour foreign language course in addition to two hour-additional course. So, the programme of these schools is summarized in the table below:
Super and Anatolian High School Prepatory Class 9 10 11 S/SS/TM/A/S FL S/SS/TM/A/S FL Compulsory 24 8 4 10 4 10 Additional - - - 2 - 4
Science High School Prepatory Class 9 10 11 Compulsory 24 6 4 4 Additional - - 2 2
Table 4 Weekly Foreign Language Course Programme at Science High Schools
However, the foreign language programmes of these high schools was reformed again in 2005 by the Ministry of Education while the programme in primary schools remained the same. The most radical change was that Super High Schools were completely eliminated and all high schools have become four years. Also, all Super High Schools have been named as Anatolian High Schools. The most important change for foreign language teaching was the elimination of all prepatory classes. Therefore, the time spent on teaching English has become much less than that of the past. The new timetable for foreign language is summarised in the following table: 9 th 10 11 12 TM SS S FL TM SS S FL TM SS S FL General High School 3 3 3 3 13 - - - 13 - - - 13 Anatolian High School 10 4 4 4 13 4 4 4 13 4 4 4 13 Science High School 8 - - 3 - - - 3 - - - 3 -
Table 5 New Foreign Language Weekly Course Programme in Turkish High Schools
With the last change, the time separated for foreign language teaching seems to be decreased compared to that of the past. It is a doubt of language teachers that whether they will be able to teach all language teaching programme in this given time.
3.2 The Application of Common Approaches in Turkey
It will be a kind of optimism to say that every English teacher who has studied and gained all theoretical and practical knowledge about the common approaches and methods in the whole history of language teaching applies them or the mixture of them in their teaching procedures. Almost all plans have a part indicating the approach or the method applied in the process and generally similar things such as “communicative approach” or “eclectic method” are written in these parts but the other parts of the plan and their applications are generally completely opposite the requirements of these “titles”. In fact, the application in Turkey is the way through which the teachers themselves learned the language.
To see the scene, it will be better to exemplify the general application in a traditional classroom. The teacher comes into the class and greets the students. After checking the absent students, the teacher wants the students to open the related page of the book. The students have already been assigned to learn the new vocabulary of the presentational reading passage or the dialogue in the book. Then, the teachers have a few students to read the passage and translate the sentences one by one. After translation, the learners underline sentences including the new structure. After this, the teacher writes these sentences on the board and explains the general rule of the structure using the mother tounge. Then, the students answer the questions related to the passage. Lastly, the exercises related to the structure are done. If students cannot answer them, the teacher helps them. The lesson finishes and the next lesson goes on with the remaining exercises in the book.
Worse than this scene, in some classes, the teacher writes some sentences on the board after s/he explains the general rule of the structure and wants the students to translate them into the mother tounge or vice verse. This is not apart from the simple application of the Grammar Transation Method, which has no scientific ground and described as the accumulation of experiences gained in the language learning process.
This kind of application is very common in our classrooms and completely opposite the approach or method written in the plans. As a result of this type of implementation, such language learners as the ones who cannot ask and answer anything apart from their names occur.
3.3 The Problem of ELT in Turkey
It is possible for many people to count a few reasons for the question “why cannot we learn or teach foreign language to our students although we give place to foreign language teaching in all levels of our educational system?” Most common ones can be the following ones:
• Our students do not know or are not aware of why they learn foreign language and its importance
• We do not have enough foreign language teachers for our learners, so they do not get enough and sufficient foreign language course
• Our students do not have the chance to apply the language knowledge they learned outside the classroom
• The time for the foreign language course is not sufficient
• The approaches, methods and the techniques applied in the classrooms are not similar to the ones the latest scientific findings offer
When investigated, all of these problems really have great role in our failure. Especially the third option is really very important. However, it is impossible to give the chance of learning the foreign language learning in the society where the target language is spoken to all our learners. Nevertheless, it is necessary to answer the question “why our students cannot communicate in the target language though some of them have enough time and teacher and though some of them are aware of the importance of learning a foreign language?” in order to determine the most significant problem that we can change and obtain positive results. The answer of this question is related to the last option. The approaches and methods applied in our classrooms are not parallel with the latest findings and the application.
To summarise, the most important problem of ELT in Turkey is related to the approaches and methods applied in the classrooms. Therefore, the rest of this study will spotlight upon a latest scientific proposal, constructivism, to change the present situation.
4.0 Constructivism
Nowadays, it has been so common to see the word “constructivism” in several published or unpublished scientific study or research papers that it is inevitable to wonder what it means and what it offers us. It appears in 28 files archived at the US Department of Education's World Wide Web site. The keyword constructivism summoned 240 journal article abstracts at the ERIC Gopher site - and that was a partial list only. Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas and many other places in the world are developing curriculum frameworks based upon the national standards for generally mathematics and science, which apply constructivist strategies. Evidently, growing numbers of educators are talking about, writing about, and implementing constructivist pedagogies.28
In addition to this, one expression of the changing language in psychology is the increasing use of terms that express constructive dimensions. The words "construct" and "construction" have been in use for centuries, of course. But "constructivism" is a relatively new word. Yet it is appearing with an accelerating frequency in the titles of books and articles in psychology. Figure 4 shows the cumulative frequency with which "construct-based" terms have appeared in the titles or abstracts of articles appearing in psychology between 1974 and 2002.29
Figure 4. Cumulative Frequency of "Construct" Words in The Titles and Abstracts of Psychological Articles
28 Mayer, M. Is It Constructivism?. Available at: http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedletter/v09n03/credits.html 08.06.2005, 15:50
29 Mahoney, M. J. What is Constructivism?
http://www.constructivism123.com/What_Is/What_is_constructivism.htm 08/06/2005 15:25
So, what does this term mean and why is it taking so much attention? Constructicism implies the following three principles which Von Glassersfeld set forth: 30
1.Knowledge is not passively receieved either through the senses or by way of communication. Knowledge is actively built up by the cognizing subject.
2.The function of cognition is adaptive, in the biological sense of the term, tending towards fit or viability.
3.Cognition serves the subject’s organization of the experiential world, not the discovery of an objective ontological reality.
After this short superficial definition of constructivism, it will be better to investigate its roots from philosophy to practice.
4.1 Brief History of Constructivism
The verb "to construct" comes from the Latin “con struere”, which means to arrange or give structure. Ongoing structuring (organizing) processes are the conceptual heart of constructivism. Among the earliest recorded proponents of some form of constructivism are Lao Tzu (6th century BC), Buddha (560-477 BC), and the philosopher of endless change, Heraclitus (540-475 BC). In western cultures, constructivists often trace their intellectual genealogy to Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933). Vico had emphasized the role of fantasy and myth in human adaptation. Kant emphasized the power of patterns in our thinking, and he regarded ideas as regulative principles in our experiencing. His "categories" were predecessors of what are now called "constructs" and "schema."
In 1876 Hans Vaihinger elaborated some of Kant's ideas. In The Philosophy of "As If," Vaihinger argued that the primary purpose of mind and mental processes is not to portray or mirror reality, but to serve individuals in their navigations through life circumstances. Vaihinger said that we live our lives by means of "functional fictions." This idea would form the cornerstone of Alfred Adler's theory of individual psychology. Vaihinger's work would
30 Von Glassersfeld, E. An Exposition of Cconstructivism: Why Some Like itRradical. In R.B. Davis, C. A. Maher& N. Noddings (Eds) Constructivist views on the teaching and leaning mathematics. Reston,VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 1990. pp.22-23
also influence the later writings of `personal construct' theorist George Kelly. William James also explored several constructivist themes, and he and several colleagues carried the curiosity of constructivism across the transition from the 19th to the 20th centuries.
Drawing on the dynamic view of learning described by Johann Herbart (1776-1841), Jean Piaget developed a model of cognitive development in which balance was central. Piaget described knowing as a quest for a dynamic balance between what is familiar and what is novel. He noted that we organize our worlds by organizing ourselves. This theme of developmental self-organization pervades constructive views of human experience. A powerful theoretical presentation of constructivism was offered in Friedrich A. Hayek's book, The Sensory Order. In this treatise, Hayek showed that what we believe to know about the external world is, in fact, knowledge about ourselves. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1974.
Constructivism continued to grow throughout the second half of the 20th century, and it is now the focus of numerous books and two international journals. The rapidity of its growth has sometimes made constructivism seem like a recent development, when in fact it has been emerging for centuries. In 1996 the Society for Constructivism in the Human Sciences was formed to encourage and communicate developments in theory, research, and practices that reflect an appreciation for "human beings as actively complex, socially-embedded, and developmentally dynamic self-organizing systems." Honored contributors to this Society include Walter Truett Anderson, Albert Bandura, Jerome S. Bruner, James F. T. Bugental, Donald H. Ford, Viktor E. Frankl, Kenneth J. Gergen, Vittorio F. Guidano, Hermann Haken, Yutaka Haruki, Humberto R. Maturana, Joseph F. Rychlak, Francisco J. Varela, Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, and Walter B. Weimer. Besides psychology, psychiatry, and medicine, this list includes scholars from biology, history, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, physics, and political science. Constructivism is clearly more than a parochial endeavor.
But what, exactly, is constructivism? Five basic themes pervade the diversity of theories expressing constructivism. These themes are (1) active agency, (2) order, (3) self, (4) social-symbolic relatedness, and (5) lifespan development. With different language and terminological preferences, constructivists have proposed, first, that human experiencing involves continuous active agency. This distinguishes constructivism from forms of determinism that cast humans as passive pawns in the play of larger forces. Second comes the contention that much human activity is devoted to ordering processes – the organizational
patterning of experience by means of tacit, emotional meaning-making processes. In a third common contention, constructivists argue that the organization of personal activity is fundamentally self-referent or recursive. This makes the body a fulcrum of experiencing, and it honors a deep phenomenological sense of selfhood or personal identity. But the self is not an isolated island of Cartesian mentation. Persons exist and grow in living webs of relationships. The fourth common theme of constructivism is that individuals cannot be understood apart from their organic embeddedness in social and symbolic systems. Finally, all of this active, meaningful, and socially-embedded self-organization reflects an ongoing developmental flow in which dynamic dialectical tensions are essential. Order and disorder co-exist in lifelong quests for a dynamic balance that is never quite achieved. The existential tone here is unmistakable. Together, then, these five themes convey a constructive view of human experience as one that emphasizes meaningful action by a developing self in complex and unfolding relationships. One can easily see the spectrum of contributions that have constructed constructivism. They range from Taoism and the process philosophy of Heraclitus to the personal, social, and narrative emphases of contemporary constructivists like Bandura, Bruner, and Gergen.31
4.2 Philosophical Fundementals
As mentioned in the history of constructivism, the philosophy of constructivism goes back to Lao Tzu (6th century BC), Buddha (560-477 BC), and the philosopher of endless change, Heraclitus (540-475 BC). In western cultures, constructivists often trace their intellectual genealogy to Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933). However, the idea behind constructivism is pragmatism and existentialism. The core of pragmatism is that a concept, an idea or a theory is nothing more than an action plan and the truth comes into being as a result of the success of this plan. Inasmuch as pragmatism depends upon individual’s experience, it gives possibility to flexibility and constant try-correct process in educational objectives and methods. Therefore, the source of education is not topic but the child itself. On the other hand, the aim of the existentialist education is to help and enable learners to develop their personal values freely without the obligations and forces of adults.32
31 Mahoney, M. J. What is Constructivism?
http://www.constructivism123.com/What_Is/What_is_constructivism.htm 08/06/2005 15:25 (3rd Paragraph)
Therefore, pragmatism and existentialism can be said to be the general philosophies behind constructivism.
4.2.1 Educational Philosophy
The main educational phlosophy giving birth to constructivism as an educational theory is progressivism. It puts forward that eduction is always in a continuous change. According to progressivism, the core of education is not adaption to society, the world outside and the rules of goodness, beauty and honesty but it is the constant reconstruction of personal experiences. Some principles of progressivism are the following:
a.Education should be active and parallel to the interests of the children.
b.Problem solving is the main technique in education.
c.School must be life itself not the preparation for the life.
d. The role of the teacher is to guide not directing.
e.School should give possibility to cooperation rather than competing.33
4.2.2 Epistemology
The philosophical fundementals of constructivism is related mostly to epistemology. From the perspective of psychology, epistemology considers the genesis and the nature of knowledge and includes learning.34 How do we come to know? What is knowledge? What is truth? What is reality? are among the main questions epistemology tries to answer.
As a result of these efforts and discussions, two opposite views come into being: objectivist view and constructivist view. According to this objectivist view, objects have intrinsic meaning, and knowledge is a reflection of a correspondence to reality. In this tradition, knowledge should represent a real world that is thought of as existing, separate and
Eğitimde Program Geliştirme. ) Ankara: Pegema.2000.p.24
33 Demirel, Ö. Kuramdan Uygulamaya Eğitimde Program Geliştirme. Ankara: Pegema .2000.p 28-9
34 Ernest, P. The One and The Many. In L. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds.).Constructivism in education (pp.459-486). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Inc. 1995
independent of the knower; and this knowledge should be considered true only if it correctly reflects that independent world. Jonassen provides a summary of objectivism:35
Knowledge is stable because the essential properties of objects are knowable and relatively unchanging. The important metaphysical assumption of objectivism is that the world is real, it is structured, and that structure can be modelled for the learner. Objectivism holds that the purpose of the mind is to "mirror" that reality and its structure through thought processes that are analyzable and decomposable. The meaning that is produced by these thought processes is external to the understander, and it is determined by the structure of the real world.
In contrast, the constructivist view argues that knowledge and reality do not have an objective or absolute value or, at the least, that we have no way of knowing this reality. Von Glasersfeld indicates in relation to the concept of reality: “It is made up of the network of things and relationships that we rely on in our living, and on which, we believe, others rely on, too”. The knower interprets and constructs a reality based on his experiences and interactions with his environment. Rather than thinking of truth in terms of a match to reality, von Glasersfeld focuses instead on the notion of viability. To the constructivist, concepts, models, theories, and so on are viable if they prove adequate in the contexts in which they were created.36
On the other hand, the epistemology of constructivism is defined as a continuum with three poles inside by Moshman: Exogenous Constructivism, Endogeneous Constructivism and Dialectical Constructivism in a center or moderate position.37
4.2.2.1 Exegenous Constructivism
Exogenous constructivism emphasizes the external nature of knowledge. Knowledge is seen as the internalisation and reconstruction of external reality. Learning or knowledge acquisition is the process of building accurate internal models or representations of external
35 Jonassen, D. H. Objectivism versus Constructivism: Do we need a new philosophical paradigm? Journal of Educational Research, 39 (3), 1991.pp.5-14
36 Murphy, E. Constructivism:From Philosophy to Practice. Available at http://www.cdli.ca/~elmurphy/emurphy/cle.html 08/06/2005 15:35 37 Doolitle, P.E. Integrating Constructivism & Cognitivism. Available at http:www.tandl.vt.edu/doolitle/research/icc.html.
