Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd. ed. Foundations
of Linguistics - Approaches Constructivism, applied linguistics,
and language education Dépt. de linguistique et de didactique
des langues Université du Québec à Montréal Tom Cobb taught
English for specific purposes (medicine, engineering) for
several years at universities in Canada and abroad (Saudi
Arabia, Oman, Hong Kong), and then did a PhD in educational
technology involving constructivist approaches to exploiting
information technology in language learning. He now gives
courses and directs dissertations involving computation and
language instruction at a French-language university in
Montreal. Constructivism, the notion that knowledge must be
assembled from pieces rather than assimilated whole, has been a
principal learning theory in psychology for about 20 years and
in psycholinguistics for 10. The theory is now making a strong
entry into educational thinking, but in language education it is
less in evidence. That is because applied lingui