Constructivist theories

of e-learning in foreign
language classroom

Applied Linguistics
Faculty of English Language and Literature
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
An overview of Constructivism
(1980s)

Main characteristics
Focus social construction of knowledge and meaning
Knowledge - does not exist outside of person but is
constructed based on how a learner interacts
and experiences the environment/ world
- learners build personal understanding by
integrating new information with past
Learning a constant ongoing process, learners interpret
incoming information based on personality,
beliefs, culture and experience
Research Piaget, Bruner: cognitive constructivism
Vygotsky: social constructivism
 Shift in pedagogy

• Emergence of constructivism coincided with the shift in

pedagogy away from teacher-centered transmission models to
knowledge-centered approaches that focus on cognitive and
social processes in learning.
• Instruction in constructivism includes presentations of real-
world problems in authentic contexts that require.
collaboration, not prescriptive presentation strategies or
accurate knowledge representation.
 Principles of constructivism in FLL
http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic20/marcus/8_2000.html

ACTION-ORIENTEDNESS HOLISTIC LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE

cooperative learning content-orientedness
creative forms of classroom work authentic and complex learning
learning by projects environment
LBT - learning by teaching

LEARNER-CENTREDNESS
individualisation of learning
autonomy of learner

PROCESS-RELATED AWARENESS
learning awareness
language awareness
intercultural awareness
 Two main trends:
cognitive and social constructivism
Cognitive Constructivism Social Constructivism
• focuses on how individuals • focuses on interaction with
create sophisticated mental people and co-construction of
representations and problem- knowledge, and sees learning
solving abilities by using tools, as increasing the student’s
information researches and ability to participate with
input from other individuals others in meaningful activities
• emphasis the individual in the • emphasizes the socially and
group, believing that cognition culturally situated context of
occurs in the head of the cognition, in which knowledge
individual and that learners is constructed in shared
make intellectual sense of the endeavours
materials on their own