Constructive Learning Theory and Designing Principles of CALL Courseware in Different Teaching Modes

As an animate learning theory and teaching theory, constructivism has been accepted by many educators and is being widely applied in modern teaching practice. One of its subjects is how to direct the development of instructional software in CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning). As a tool in classroom for assisting the teachers and students to implement teaching activities, instructional software should have different formats under different objective conditions and environments, and should have different functions and roles in different modes. However, because CALL has multiplex application modes, it is vital that we just introduce four main modes: classroom teaching, individual learning, the network classroom, distance education and virtual reality. The purpose of this paper is to analyze these five teaching modes and offer correspondent design principles of instructional software based on constructivist learning theory.