英语本科毕业论文-The Psychological Impediments to Students’ English Learning in Middle Schools and Teaching Strategies.doc

第19页the psychological impediments to students english learning in middle schools and teaching strategies. introductionthere is no doubt that english is believed to be one of the widely used languages throughout the world. for a long time in china, english learning has been considered a powerful tool. we learn english because china has jointed the wto, because beijing will hold the 2008 olympics and because we want to develop our economy and we want more people to understand english, to speak it and to use it. the purpose of this mastery has been to become much more familiar with people from all over the world so we can understand them and communicate with them more effectively. this pathway demands that learning activity becomes a daily task. there are two main elements that affect the study of foreign language. one is their mother tongue, the other one is affectivity. we have begun to realize something- the importance of being aware of the individuals, especially middle school students psychological state while learning english. since middle school students who are in the age of teenagers are the bright future of our country. so much more attention should be paid on them. for one thing, english is one of the main subjects both in junior and senior high school; for another, the study towards english is the requirement of the rapid developed society, since the influence of globalization. otherwise, they would be washed out by the society, by the order of nature. in addition to realize the psychological state of middle school students, we teachers have to adopt effective teaching strategies to improve middle school students english level in order to achieve the anticipative purpose of english teaching.ii. the present condition of middle school students english learning and psychological analysis2.1 the present condition of middle school students english learning in order to further understand the present of middle school students english learning, that is, how much did they master on listening, speaking, reading, and writing while studying english, i make a survey towards this question, which is about “the present of middle school students english learning”. although this is only a partial survey, it really reflected middle school students present of english learning. on mar.2008, i came to no.7 middle school of fushun city. i prepared 10 questions. and the statistics is listed below:usuallysometimesneverunaware1. do you read your english articles loudly?31%60%4%5%2. do you understand others while speaking english?12%42%0%10%3. can you speak english go-as-you-please?0%56%27%17%4. is your grammar very food?17%35%31%15%5. do you have a good memory of reciting new vocabularies?15%35%19%31%6. are you afraid of making mistakes while speaking english?38%27%23%10%7. in english classes, your mistake is corrected by your teacher, will you be angry?8%31%27%33%8. would your voice be better while reading than making dialogues?40%21%6%31%9. do you need more time to think while speaking english?35%38%12%15%10. would you like to recite new grammar rules and new vocabularies?23%46%17%10%we can see from the survey statistics that the present condition of middle school students english learning is not quite optimistic at all. question no.1 to no.3 indicates that students english speaking and using is impeditive. the purpose of learning a kind of language is that you could communicate with others without any difficulty. however, the students could speak english sometimes only, and they couldnt speak it freewheelingly. and even they couldnt understand others speaking english. most of the students have been learning english for more than six years, but still muddleheaded. although some of them could get high marks in written examinations, the phenomenon of “deaf-and-dumb english” usually appear while using the language.from question no.6 to no.8, we can know that most of the students are afraid of making mistakes while speaking english, which is the sticking point why they couldnt learn english well. the students are always worried about their weakness of pronunciation, so that they fear “opening their mouth”, fear making mistakes, ashamed of “opening their mouth”. actually, making mistakes is the common phenomenon in the process of language learning. you cannot learn a foreign language well without making mistakes. therefore, as a teacher, we have to make it clear that there is no existence of right or wrong in learning language. it is all right as long as what you said can be understood.the problem that question no.4, no.9 and no. 10 show us is quite serious. it tells us that they have no interest in english.in conclusion, through this simple survey, i deeply realized the situation of middle school students english learning. we may draw a conclusion that middle school students integrated ability of english is not optimistic. as an educator, we have to analyze the reason in order to solve this serious problem.2.2 an analysis of psychological impediments to middle school students english learning 2.2.1 reliant psychology reliant psychology refers to a kind of dependant psychology which lack of independence and self-determination. some students never open their mouth to read english loudly, even they have no basic spelling and reading skill, so they never recite new vocabularies and new sentence patterns. they just give themselves up; some students are lack of self-control competence, they couldnt fix attention on the teacher. as for their homework, they simply copy others. being lack of study motivation and negative attitude cause this kind of reliant psychology.2.2.2 frustrated psychology every student needs their potential to be achieved. the satisfaction of this demand helps to build their confidence and creative ability. but under the coordinative competition of study, there is seldom praise and success, in stead; they have to face many fail experiences. while in the classroom, if their mistakes are corrected by their classmates or their teacher, they always feel ashamed of themselves. they will have no enthusiasm to answer the question any more, because their self-esteem was deeply frustrated.2.2.3 self-contemptuous psychology students who are not good at english always give themselves up; they couldnt analyze the reason why their english learning ability is so weak correctly. they naturally believed that others are smarter, so they look small of themselves, and their self-esteem was deeply frustrated. besides, they are so sensitive towards others opinion or attitude and think a lot of their teacher or classmates evaluations. once they feel unsuccessful, they would look down upon of themselves and fell into the fetter of loneliness. 2.2.4 irksome psychology the most important reason that causes students psychological barriers is that students lack of necessary psychological preparations towards the mechanical and laborious process of english learning. besides, without mastering correct study methods aggravate the students english study burdens. the form of the irksome psychology is due to the traditional english teaching system. in the traditional class, teachers used to teaching students in front of class and students are only listening, this is only a unitary way between teachers and students in class. in that case teaching is a mechanical way that is only transferring from teaching plan by teacher onto the blackboard. “following the conventional procedures” is the most appropriate summary for the feature of traditional teaching. the teacher only plays a role of translator and does not finish the task of teaching. in english class, teachers only abide a fixed model in teaching: lead students to read the textask students to translating english into chinese about the passagesreciting new words as their homework and before next lesson, the teacher will have an exam. but students are in the age of teenagers, their thinking changes quickly and feeling hackneyed to this stubborn method. although most of them realize the importance of this subject, they began to learn it by heart, they always lost their heads while confronting with the long article, the increasing vocabularies and more difficult grammar focuses. their study interest, motivation, confidence, diligence, and feelings are deeply influenced. so they feel irksome towards english learning. under the domination of this psychology, the whole process of english study gets into a vicious circle.2.2.5 dread psychology in the process of english study, many of them lack of confidence that they could learn english well; they could master this foreign language. while confronting with elusive points, they are suspicious of their ability and shrink back from difficulties, especially when they forgot what they had learned before. at the same time, their parents and teachers ignorance make them lose courage and the confidence of further study. it makes them feel anxious, even dread in the process of english study2.2.6 anxious psychology scovel defines anxiety as a kind of disquiet, a kind of indescribable dread. according to maclntyre and gardners study, anxiety can be classified into state anxiety and trait anxiety. if the learner loses confidence in the specific time towards a specific language in the process of language learning, then, this kind of anxiety belongs to state anxiety; it would disappear as the improvement of mastering this language; if the learner experiences a long-term frustration or hit, they would lose confidence completely, so as to feel nervous, then, this kind of anxiety belongs to trait anxiety which would be their psychological barriers, so as to become a negative impact. 2.2.7 mother tongue formulary psychology almost all of the middle school students learn english on the basis of a consummate mastery of their mother tongue. under the long-term study of their mother tongue, unavoidably, the process of english study, to some extent, was influenced by their mother tongue, both in the study attitude, strategies, and study methods. as soon as the formulary is formed, neither the study methods nor the way of thinking would go with obvious mother tongue features. so this is the reason why there exists what we called chinglish. students lack of the knowledge of western countries customs, cultures, living habits and so on, so they use chinese way to think, to speak, to communicate with foreigners. this kind of formulary is helpless to english learning; on the contrary, it seriously blocked and interfered the correct understanding and mastery of english. iii.reasons of these situation and psychology3.1 misunderstandings towards english learningone of the reasons why students couldnt learn english well is due to their misunderstandings towards english. the jumping-off point of all the students are the same, but as for the result, it is usually different. the long-believed theory that “you can travel through the world as long as you are good at mathematics, physics and chemistry” does not work as well as before. maybe sometimes ago, this sentence is suitable to that society system. but recently, as the rapid development of the society, what the society really needs is an all-around genius. nowadays, if you know little about english, you even couldnt find a job no matter which field you engaged in. if you are a job-hunter, you will see that almost all sorts of job need a condition of mastering english. by the influence of globalization, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. communications between countries is becoming more and more. while communicating with others, we have to know their language. otherwise, there is no doubt that the communication is a failure. however, english seems to be the inter-language. we use english to understand others, thus making the communication to be successful. during my days of being a teacher in a middle school, i remember such an affair in an english examination. a student didnt write his composition, only several chinese characters instead. it is written like this, 英语考试不及格，证明我爱国. when i saw this, i was deeply shocked, why this student has such bad ideas. he didnt realize why we have to learn english. if it is useless at all, educational department will not set this subject as one of the main subjects. there are so many pathways to show that you love your country, not such stupid behaviors. maybe this kind of misunderstanding is due to the foreign countries tyrannizing tens of years ago, but now it is a peacetime. we use modern weapons to defeat others. it is said that “know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles with no danger of defeat”. i believe that the process of learning foreign languages is the reflection of loving your country. how much you mastered this language stands for how much you love your country.some students who are in science classes are very good at science, but as we mentioned how about their english study, they simply said that “dont mention that, please, i am a chinese, my chinese is even bad, say nothing of english.” so we can see that many students have misunderstandings towards english learning.there is no question that learning a foreign language is different to learning other subjects, mainly because of the social nature of such a venture. language, after all, belongs to a persons whole social being; it is a part of ones identity, and it is used to convey this identity to other people. the learning of a foreign language involves far more than simply learning skills, or a system of rules, or a grammar; it involves an alteration in self-image, the adoption of new social and cultural behaviors and ways of being, and therefore has a significant impact on the social nature of the learner. as crookall and oxford aptly claim: “learning a second language is ultimately learning to be another social person.”3.2 pressures given by parents, teachers and classmates parents and teachers care and edification are always the impetus of the students improvement. at the same time, it would also become the pressures of blocking their progress. more than 65% students in the survey said that, “i know that english is very important, i also have the desire to learn it well. i want my parents to be proud of me; i also wanted to receive my teachers praise. but in the class, the teacher is speaking english with enthusiasm, i told myself to follow her, but whenever i listen to her by heart, i found that i even could not understand her. at this time, i will have no interest and confidence to follow her. besides, my english basis is not deep-set at all. i think that the process of learning english is a long-time task. take me as an example, my pay and gain are not in right direct ratio. and whenever i have questions, i dare not ask my teacher or my classmates, i am afraid of being jesting and despising.” at this time, the psychological states like frustrated psychology, self-contemptuous psychology, dread psychology and irksome psychology would be formed.just this kind of psychological state baffled the improvement of middle school students english learning. this is a common problem, and couldnt be avoiding away. they paid a lot attention on their self-esteem, and others opinions towards them, once their proper pride was hurt, they would feel being frustrated. since all of the middle school students have a common psychological feature, that is, strong self-esteem; if say it in another way, they are quite sensitive about their reputation. it demands our teachers to protect students self-esteem while instructing or supervising students, otherwise, things would go contrary to our wishes. it is right if we point out their mistakes with solemn and just, even criticism is necessary sometimes. but while criticizing, we teachers have to regard “not-to-hurt-their-self-esteem” as the strict principle. 3.3 lack of motivation, interest, confidence and persistencea linguist, who is from czech republic, has ever said that, “interest is a chief way to create a cheerful and bright atmosphere of teaching.” a swedish linguist said: “interest makes effective work.” russian educationist said: “if students were forced to study without any interest, they would have no desire to master knowledge.”a helpful way of conceptualizing interest is to regard its effect as a “filter” through which the input of foreign language has to pass through before it is required. a famous president of middle school, called shi shaoxi who has talked much about the importance of interest in study. he said: “when a student has more interest in a subject, he could have strong determination and enthusiasm to learn it, he also has strong stamina and selfless spirit of study. interest just likes a teacher who leads people to explore truth, stimulating study enthusiasm and creation.”psychologist considers that interest is peoples recognition and demands for one thing, which can make people prioritize attention to something with positive emotion. that is, people have a psychological tendency to carry out something or join in some activity with enthusiasm.so we can see the importance of cultivating students interest. it is helpful for students further study. as soon as they have the interest, thus motivation is also formed. it has been discovered in the survey that 82% students give up english learning halfway because of lacking persistence and confidence. the process of english learning is a long-time work. as the time goes, the amount of learning would be increasing. so it is common to confront difficulties and mistakes, it can not be avoided. students have to get the persistence of learning it, and the confidence to learn