Positivism and qualitative researches are mainly used in this paper. The paper would be pided into five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to warming-up activities, including the current situation of the application of warming-up in EFL classes in universities. Chapter two in the study on the theoretical framework of the present research: constructivism and task-based language teaching (TBLT). Chapter three focuses on the application of TBLT in warming-up activities in intensive reading course for English majors, which is followed by Chapter four, a case study, carried out in SIT for English majors to provide authentic materials to support the arguments in Chapter three. Chapter five is the conclusion, which discusses the implication of the present research, and then some suggestions on teachers’ roles, learners’ roles and teaching environment are put forward. My paper would be extended from the brief analysis of the current application of the warming-up activities and the study on the theoretical framework of the present research: constructivism and task-based language teaching (TBLT). Then, I would concentrate on task-based language teaching guided by constructivism in warming-up activities, including their survey design, which describes the subjects and questions of the survey and the reports about the result of survey and analysis of the data. Using educational experimentations, a case study, carried out in SIT for English majors to provide authentic materials, I would explore the impacts of three warming-up methods to foster and inspire college students’ academic emotion in English classroom. Based on the results of survey, I will precisely analyze the results brought by the teaching methods. The statistics available of the survey, providing useful first-hand materials, is bound to help me sort out their different characteristics and values of warming-up methods in English teaching.
2 Theoretical Framework
The kernel of this paper is task-based language teaching guided by constructivism in warming-up activities. So the two main concepts involved in the present paper are constructivism and Task-based Language Teaching.
2.1 Constructivism
In this paper, the whole research would be organized and conducted on the basis of the constructivism. The theory of constructivism, also called structuralism, is a branch of cognitive theory, which was first advanced by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in the 1960s. Constructivism is a theory to explain how knowledge is constructed in the human being when information comes into contact with existing knowledge that had been developed by experiences. (Net.1) Simply stated, the constructivism theory focuses on students-centered teaching, playing emphasis on students’ active exploration as well as knowledge and meaning construction. According to the theory of constructivism, learning is a process of construction made by incorporating new information with their previous knowledge. Furthermore, because learning is a process of meaning construction in a special cultural background through interactive communication, it is believed that learning should be a student-centered process with the guidance of teachers. The student is required to act upon the environment to both acquire and test new knowledge.
Approaches based on constructivism usually pay much emphasis to recognize learners’ needs and interests, create cooperative learning atmosphere, and launch activities to achieve the objectives. Personal relevance of the content, involvement of the learner in the process, and deeper understanding of underlying concepts are some of the intersections between emphases in constructivism and learning principles. (Net.2) In constructivism, language learning should be a logical thinking process where learners get new information, and form a language knowledge system. Through automatic communication, learners will further interact and negotiate with each other and finally finish the construction of language ability in both linguistic and communicative sense. The theory of constructivism provides a scientific theory for reading teaching. Since the theory emphasizes the students’ needs and interests, pays attention to the cultivation of students’ learning ability, coordination ability and self-development ability, it certainly will play a positive role in promoting students’ reading teaching efficiency. 热身活动在英语精读课堂教学中的应用基于建构主义学习理论(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_6179.html