An Analysis of Psychological Factors Affecting High School Students’English Learning 影响中学生英语学习的心理因素分析.doc

影响中学生英语学习的心理因素分析an analysis of psychological factors affecting high school studentsenglish learningabstractin the 21st century, learning english well is of realistic and far-reaching historic significance to chinese. at present, more and more chinese are aware of the essentiality of learning english, but the actuality of english teaching does not satisfy the needs of china economic construction and social development. there still exists a gap between the actuality and the requirements of the fast developing age. this makes it necessary to consider the existing problems in the process of english teaching and learning. this thesis lays emphasis on analyzing the non-intelligence factors, including the incorrect motivation toward english learning, the arrogance psychology, the personality of introversion, the frustration psychology, inferiority complex, hatred for english learning, the conformable psychology, etc. then, the writer finds some possible ways to remove the psychological barriers and thus settle some practical problems the high school students may meet with in their english learning, such as, correcting the incorrect motivations, harmonizing the relationship between teachers and students, fostering students interest in english learning, increasing students self-confidence and cultivating students strong will, etc.key words: psychological factors; non-intelligence factors; psychological barriers摘 要在21世纪，学好英语对于中国人来说有着重要的现实意义和深远的历史意义。目前， 越来越多的中国人意识到了学习英语的重要性。但是， 中国英语教育的现状尚不能适应国家经济建设和社会发展的需要。现实与时代发展的要求还存在着差距。这促使英语学习者和英语教育者思考英语教学过程中存在的问题。本论文分析了影响中学生学习的因素，尤其是非智力因素，即学习英语的过程中出现的心理障碍，它们包括不良的英语学习动机，内向性格，挫折心理，自卑心理，厌学心理和从众心理。然后作者提出了一些克服心理障碍的方法，来解决中学生在英语学习过程中可能遇到的一些问题。这些方法是：纠正中学生的不良英语学习动机，和谐师生之间的关系，培养学生学习英语的兴趣，增强学生自信心以及培养学生学习英语的坚强意志。关键词: 心理因素；非智力因素；心理障碍introductionwith chinas entry into the wto, china catches up with the world gradually. at the same time, english, as an international language and a communicative tool, becomes more and more important. in the 21st century and the next centuries, english will be used in peoples work, in their study and almost everywhere in their daily life, so learning english well has realistic and far-reaching historic significance to people in modern times. in china, english is introduced into the students courses in some elementary schools and in all the high schools both in the cities and countryside. in the cities, it is taught even in some kindergartens. but, in reality, however early one starts to learn english, he may feel it difficult to learn english well. what affects the students learning of english in high schools on earth? last century, some experts both at home and abroad did researches into foreign language learning process and proved that both intelligence factors and non-intelligence factors influence students english learning. non-intelligence factors which refer to all the psychological factors except intelligence factors influence common english learners study deeply including the high school students. .analysis of the actuality of english learning in high schoolswith the expanding of reform and opening to the outside world, the reform of english teaching and learning in high schools enters a new stage in china. in the process of reforming, great progress has been made. however, there exist a lot of common problems in english teaching and learning in high schools according to the reality. for example, some students elementary knowledge is not systematic; many other pupils dont have good or firm mastery of fundamental knowledge of english; they lack ability to use english in practice and feel it difficult to speak or to write. usually, some students fall into a process like this. they feel curiosity towards english and being interested in it at first. then, they lose curiosity and interest gradually. when meet difficulties or gain low scores they lose confidence. at last they loathe english. whats more? to a whole class, there exist the phenomenon of extreme polarization, that is, in the same classroom, some students make progress in english rapidly and learn it very well while others make very slow progress and perform badly in it. the factors affecting students english learning in high schoolsas for the existing problems mentioned above, what affects the students english learning on earth is well worth considering. in fact, it is influenced by both intelligence factors and non-intelligence factors. in the process of english learning, the intelligence factors and non-intelligence factors work together, supplement and complement each other. psychologists think that intelligence factor is the necessary condition of english learning, however, the non-intelligence factor is the ample condition.a. intelligence factorsintelligence refers to the ability to cognize the objective things and settle the practical problems. it is doubtless that intelligence is a factor affecting peoples study. last century, people almost think accordantly that, under the traditional teaching and learning conditions, intelligence is a reliable predicting index of students performance in study. in another word, students will perform better and will receive much higher education if they have higher level of intelligence. however, it is worth noticing that intelligence does not affect the occurrence of learning activity, that is to say, intelligence is not the factor which decides whether the students can learn well an area of knowledge. (pi liansheng, 55)to the subject of english, intelligence functions in the same way. sometimes, intelligence plays an important role in english learning. first, intelligence will exert its function more if the teaching and learning ways are more traditional. it will play a more important role in english learning in the higher-level of english activities such as in the profession concerning foreign affairs, the research of linguistics, and the advanced interpreting or the simultaneous interpreting. but this also demonstrates from the other side, to the common english learners, non-intelligence will play a more important role in their english learning process. and intelligence is not the unique index of students performance in study in modern teaching and learning. second, intelligence factors dont affect the occurrence of the activity of english learning. they are not the factors which decide whether the students can learn english well. without interest, strong-will, correct motivation toward english, however high-level intelligence a student has, he can not learn english well yet.b. non-intelligence factorsthe concept of “non- intelligence factor” has been controversial. a lot of experts and scholars tried to define “non-intelligence factor”. among them, the most influential is yan guocai. mr. yan thinks it can be used in a broad sense and a narrow sense. in a broad sense, it refers to all the psychological factors that influence on study except the intelligence factor. in a narrow sense, it is made up of five psychological factors including motivation, interest, emotion, will and personality. many people think in the process of english teaching and learning, whether the student is able to study english or not depends on the students intelligence factor, but whether the student is willing to study english or not depends on the students non-intelligence factor. as to the effect of the english learning, it depends on both of them. however, to most students in high schools, it depends on the non-intelligence factor mainly. in recent years, overseas research on english teaching and learning has shifted from educators to individual learners and to the psychological factors affecting english learning. people have realized that study on english learners psychological factors is essential to more efficient teaching and learning of english. in english learning, the high school students are influenced by all kinds of psychological factors. these psychological factors not only include the students motivation, interest, emotion, will but also include the students personality. high school students often meet with a lot of difficulties in their learning road. many may have personality barriers such as the arrogance psychology, the frustration psychology, the sense of inferiority complex, the hatred for english learning, the conformable psychology etc.1. incorrect motivation toward english learning motivation is commonly thought of as an inner drive, impulse, emotion or desire that moves one to a particular action. it is actually a cluster of factors that energize behavior and give it directions.(jane arnold, p23)it has become the educators and psychologists credit in the 20th century that all learning activities result from motivation.motivation is one of the most important and necessary conditions of cognitive learning. it is usually examined in terms of the intrinsic and extrinsic orientation of the learner. (jane arnold, f2)those who learn for their own needs and goals are intrinsically oriented and those who pursue a goal only to receive an external reward such as prizes, grades and even certain types of positive feedback are extrinsically motivated. intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic one especially for long-term maintenance although both of them are beneficial to learners success in english. if high school students want to learn english for a long-term, they must firstly have correct learning motivation. the learning motivation is made up of learning needs and learning lure. it reflects mainly on the students learning attitude and will. and it penetrates in all the aspects of english learning process, reflects upon the psychological changes and psychological barriers. positive motivation is related to success in english. in high schools, students who are not good at english are usually those whose motivation of english learning is incorrect. some students do not know the importance of english, the reason why they learn it, the use it has and the benefit it will bring them. they think they learn english just for their teachers or parents or for a high score in an exam. these students have little desire of learning knowledge. they are not strong-willed or eager to make progress. their attitudes toward english are bad, and usually behave dishonorably in the process of english learning. these incorrect motivations affect the high school students english learning seriously.2. the arrogance psychologyat the beginning stage of english learning, the students often learn some simple english words and sentence structures. most students can master them easily and quickly. so they can get high scores in english examinations and do well in it. at this time, its very easy to get praise from the english teacher. they become very proud. therefore, some of them begin to engender the psychology of ignoring english from then on. they think that to learn english well is a simple thing; they can learn it well just by remembering some english words or reciting some simple english texts. with the growing degree of difficulty, their scores usually fall gradually. at this moment, with less praise from their teacher, they feel that they fall out of favor. gradually, they feel they can do nothing to improve their english. then, they are likely to give up. this is another psychological factor which affects high school students english learning.3. the personality of introversionpersonality refers to the stable attitude towards the reality and the behavior which one has used to and adapted to the attitude. (pi liansheng, 57) in 1913, the psychologist of switzerland g.g. .jung classified personality into two types: one is introversive personality, the other is extroversive personality. (pi liansheng, p61) some surveys show that students academic performance in english often relates to their personalities. in fact, a number of personality characteristics have been proposed as likely to affect foreign language learning including english learning. among them, extroversion and its counterpart introversion are seen as important factors.the extroversive students are characterized by being good at communicating with others, being eager to take adventures and being very confident. in comparison, the introversive students are quiet, shy and not good at communicating with others including their parents, teachers and peers. english as a language, whose main function is to communicate with others. it is a communicative tool which makes people understand each other. so it is inevitable that learners have to use english to communicate with people around them in some occasions besides using the written form of english. this requires students to be active, confident and adventurous enough so that they can improve and master it in the process of practice. extroversive students who are active and talkative can often participate freely and bravely both in class discussions and some other occasions whatever the occasion is true or virtual. they dare to try what they have learned lately whatever the new words or the new sentence structures. they are very confident so that they are not afraid of making mistakes. if they do make some mistakes, they can correct them without depression, shyness or getting angry after the teachers criticism or pointing out the mistakes. however, the introversive students usually keep silent in class. they are not active, confident, or brave enough. they often dare not to answer the teachers question, participate in discussion because they are so shy so hesitating and afraid of making any mistakes which may make them fall into an embarrassing situation or be laughed at by their classmates.so generally speaking, introversive students take less advantage of practice in english learning. they make less progress than the extroversive students in the natural language environment. their introversive personality hinders their progress of english learning to some degree.4. the frustration psychologyalthough high school students have certain abilities to take care of themselves and deal with some issues independently, they can not handle everything totally by themselves yet. and there must be an environment to train their abilities to be independent. but now, in china, thanks to the family planning program in most cities and towns, families only have one child. most children living in this kind of family get too much concern and love from their parents, grandparents and relatives since they were born. they become not only the core of the family, but also the emperor of the family. theoretically speaking, families should give children more concern and love, but in real life, some families even spoil their children. parents often do things which should be done by their children. with the time gone by, the only child in the family gradually cultivates bad habits of depending on others. although they often say “i can do it without any help” to others, they hope that they can get help from others at first when they really meet difficulties in their study or daily life. this psychology of depending on others makes them fear difficulties and frustrate easily.this frustration psychology does harm to their english learning. english as a second language to chinese students, it is inevitable there must be a lot of difficulties in the learning process due to the lack of practical language environment. the knowledge of english is just like a chain of rings, the ring clasp together one by one. this requires that english learners learn english in order and advance step by step. as long as they practice their english again and again, they can gain good ability to listen to english, speak english, read english and write english. if they can not remember words, they can not make sentences; if they dont recite the texts; they will have no sense of language, then there is no need to say the practice of the conversation in english.in fact, at the beginning, most high school students hoped to learn english well and made up their mind to learn english hard. but its easy for them to be frustrated and lose the enterprising spirit of learning english then to give up because they become the captives of difficulties due to frustration psychology. 5. inferiority complexwhen there is a new thing or new phenomenon, people are often very interested in it and have great curiosity of it. so they are eager to observe and know it. there exists the same phenomenon in the process of english learning. when high schools students face the subject of english the first time, they learn english with the most curiosity, interest and enthusiasm. but, with the increasing learning contents, the more complicated structure of knowledge, the growing number of vocabulary, the more exercises and the higher requirement in the aspect of listening, speaking, reading and writing, students lose interest to english gradually. they often feel english learning more and more difficult and feel it a heavy burden weighing on their mind. although some of them have tried their best to settle the problems, the bad effect, in some cases, depress them. their academic performance in english is not improved in spite of their efforts. at this moment, most of them think that their intelligence is lower than others or they have no gift of english learning. then, the pessimism generates in their inner heart easily. they stop making efforts to study english. in their class, they often feel much inferior to others. in this situation, they are afraid of being asked to answer the teachers question in class because they are afraid of being laughed at by their teacher and classmates. they dare not hand up to express their opinions in a discussion and dare not participate in performance in english. to them, english class means dread and depression. to have english classes in