Affective Factors and English Teaching in Junior High school.doc

毕业论文（设计）Affective Factors and English Teaching in Junior High school1.Introduction12. Characters of junior high school students33.The importance of affective factors to English teaching in junior high school44. The present circumstances of English teaching in junior high school55. How to make use of affective factors in English teaching in junior high school75.1 Attitudes75.1.1 Interest and motivations75.1.2 Self-esteem95.1.3 Will115.2 Anxiety125.2.1 Facilitating anxiety125.2.2 Debilitating anxiety135.2.3 Reducing debilitating anxiety145.3 Relationship between students and teachers155.3.1 Teachers should get on well with their students Create a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere for students Respect students and notice their differences Help students taste happiness in learning English185.3.2 Students should get on well with their teachers Students cooperate with their teachers Students should be adjustable206. Conclusion21References221.Introduction“Quick-stuffing” type of teaching was once popular in English teaching in junior high schools in which students became passive receivers and their feelings were ignored, such a teaching resulted in “emotional illiteracy”.With the development of psychology, humanism is paid attention to gradually. Humanism has brought a shift in education towards an internal frame of reference, considering capacity for learning in terms of affective state conditioned by the individuals life experience and beliefs. In 1950s, Humanistic Psychology which requires people pay more attention to affective factors came out.Affective factors are a combination of a series of complicated psychological factors, such as attitudes, personality, anxiety, and confidence and so on and affective factors are characterized by uncertainty and constant change. According to Arnild, affective factors are factors which are concerned with the language learner as an individual focus on the learner as a participant in a socio-cultural situation, such as motivation, self-confidence and anxiety.Some scholars have carried out researches on the benefit of taking affective factors into account during teaching process. Suggesto Pedia suggests people to forget anxiety and to arouse their interest in learning; Total Physical Response suggests reducing anxiety. Krashens Affective Filter Hypothesis points out learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image and a low level of anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. From all mentioned above, we can see affective factors play an important role in teaching.However, affective factors have not been paid apt attention to in English teaching in junior high schools actually. Because of the pressure of making the students enter better senior high schools, teachers pursue high marks while neglect their feelings. As mentioned above, affective factors are significant. Therefore, teachers should be aware of the effect of affective factors in English teaching and make good use of them to improve teaching quality. This thesis aims at how to make use of favorable affective factors and avoid the negative ones so as to improve the quality of English teaching.2. Characters of junior high school studentsThe juniors characters are still unstable. Compared with primary students, they are more sensitive, while compared with senior ones, it seems that junior students are immature and are always on impulse. People usually use “storm”to describe the junior students. Their characters are special.First, junior students have strong self-esteem. As they grow up, they begin to pay attention to their image in others eyes and always want to be paid attention to, but are unwilling to lose face in public. They want to show they are the best ones. The junior are fragile and sensitive, so they cant bear their errors to be pointed out directly or blamed by their teachers in public. The youth are vain. Only when their self-esteem is satisfied, would they like to do something.Second, junior students moods are constantly changing and unstable. When they are encouraged, they show the greatest enthusiasm in something but when they are discouraged, they deny themselves and will not try their effort to do it. The junior have a wide range of interest but weak willpower. They are interested in many things and want to know more about them, but cant insist on them. Whats more, the junior are easily affected by their personal emotions. If they like a teacher, they will learn the subject the teacher teaches with great enthusiasm, but if they dont, whatever the teacher does can not attract them and arouse their interest in the subject. Third, junior students have a strong sense of respect. They are not some kind of containers which accept knowledge passively. They need to be guided in their study or other aspects patiently, so they need help from teachers. Teachers are their tutors instead of controllers. As students grow to be mature, they feel the need of respect. The junior need personal spaces and look forward to be independent.Fourth, the junior are different individuals. Its impossible for all the students to be of the same character. They have different characters. Thus, teachers should treat them in different ways.3.The importance of affective factors to English teaching in junior high schoolAffective factors are of importance to English teaching in junior middle school.First, paying attention to affective factors makes educators know what to do. When dealing with learners problems in learning, attention needs to be paid to how to overcome negative affective factors and create positive ones. When affective factors and characters of junior students are taken into account, teachers can take good care of students moods in their teaching. Teachers know what they should do and what they should not. The ways they teach and the ways they treat students are paid attention to. Students are more willing to study and are highly motivated in friendly class atmosphere.Second, paying attention to affective factors helps develop the characters of junior students. Because of the pressure of entering better senior high schools, teachers pursue high marks without considering students feelings and development, so one of the consequences of the situation is “emotional illiteracy”. Paying attention to affective factors benefits both students English learning ability and the development of their personality. Third, paying attention to affective factors leads to good relationship between students and teachers. Teachers should remind themselves of respecting students and doing things in terms of students, but not criticizing them when they make mistakes .Students like the teacher and are willing to learn the subject the teacher teaches.Whats more, paying attention to affective factors can improve teaching effect and contribute in a very significant way to educate learners effectively.4. The present circumstances of English teaching in junior high schoolChanges have seldom taken in English teaching. Though some junior high schools in big cities might make use of multimedia in teaching, most of the places in China, class pattern is always the same: blackboard, chalks, books, and teachers. Students are passive and just do what their teachers ask them to do. They just make notes and hardly open their mouths to speak English in the class. Teachers dominate classes. Most of the time in class, teachers do the talking and students listen. There is little communication between them. Whats more, because of the pressure of making the students enter better senior high schools, teachers often take examines and hold competition, regardless of students feelings. Teachers hold such a belief that the more exams students take, the better effect it has. The overemphasized competition makes learners anxious, terrified of learning and dislike studying. Students may find they spend most of their time on English but receive the least effect.Junior students are vain and they have an urge to show off their English in front of their peers to satisfy them. But they seldom have the chance. Gradually, their enthusiasm disappears, and they become less interested in English.In school days, people may often see such a sight: a teacher enters the classroom angrily and throws the exercise books on the platform heavily and begins to blame the students: “the students who havent handed in homework should stand up at once. Why didnt you hand in your homework on time?” A student answers in a low voice “there is too much homework and I dont know how to do.” “I havent seen a student as lazy as you. You are stupid. Have I assigned too much homework? Well, after class, the homework you should do is ten times as much as I have assigned you. Other students neither do well in the homework, you should” We can imagine how hard it is for students to spend the rest of the class.Obviously, the teacher neglects students affective factors in teaching. Junior students are especially sensitive. Sometimes teachers should satisfy their vanity and listen to their explanations. Blame and scold just make things worse. Krashen has pointed out in his Affective Filter Hypothesis that if educators want their students to do better in foreign language learning, they must keep students affective factors in mind.5. How to make use of affective factors in English teaching in junior high school5.1 AttitudesHerman formulates a “resultative hypothesis” to explain her finding: the mere satisfaction (a learner) derives from his achievement of the learning task may influence his attitude and even result in a change of such attitude. Satisfaction is important to hold a positive attitude.Attitudes play very important roles in English teaching. Here attitudes include interest and motivations, self-esteem and willpower.5.1.1 Interest and motivations For Gardner and Lambert, motivation comes from attitude. Attitudes do not have direct influence on learning, but they lead to motivation (see Bernard Spolsky, 2000:149).Keller(1984) (cited in Crookes and Schmidt,1989) defines “interest” as one of the main elements of motivation, defining it a positive response to stimuli based on existing cognitive structures in such a way that learners curiosity is aroused and sustained.People are often motivated by interest. Students want to learn something because they are interested in it and they know nothing or little about it. Albert Einstein has ever said “Interest is the best teacher”. Interest pushes students to study. In junior high school, students are easy to be stirred by interest. Teachers should guide them correctly. For example, teachers can tell them something interesting in English-speaking countries to arouse their interest or teach them in an interesting way. Henning (1983) conjectures that, successful second language acquisition may be dependent on the interest that a language learner brings to the learning situation. Interest is aroused not just by careful planning of stimulating topics and tasks, but also by teachers own enthusiasm and eagerness: teachers who are excited about their subject or who simply love teaching seem to convey their own motivation to their students. To arouse students interest in English, teachers should first show their interest in it.There are several factors which combine in a profile of the successful second language learner. Motivation to learn is important. Arnold and Brown divided motivations into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivationIntrinsic motivation is the urge to engage in the learning activity for its own sake while extrinsic motivation is derived from external incentives.Intrinsic motivation not only does good to the improvement in study and work efficiency and the stir of creation but also motivates the individual have a strong self-efficacy, and have a feeling of satisfaction in their learning.Intrinsic motivation is developed as an alternative to goal-directed theories of motivation that emphasize the role of intrinsic rewards and punishments. For example, junior students are motivated by their interest in English itself or the culture in English-speaking countries. They want to know more about it to satisfy themselves. Intrinsic motivation is produced inside the students, and it will last for a long time. An English teacher can motivate a junior student who doesnt like English to be engaged in English. The teacher may provide them with many charming things about English or culture in English-speaking countries.In schools, teachers should see it as their job to motivate students by engaging their interest in classroom activities. In fact, junior students interest is easily to be aroused and motivated. And they are easily to be pushed by teachers.5.1.2 Self-esteemWe refer self-esteem to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capable, significant, successful and worthy.English teaching sometimes causes a threat to self-esteem by depriving learners of their normal means of communication, their freedom to make errors. Junior students are susceptible and pay more attention to how their peers think of them. More often, they want to get a chance to show they are the best ones, but they dont want to lose faces in front of their peers, especially in front of the opposite sex. They think it to be shameful for what they dont know.Junior students have strong self-esteem. Everyone wants to be admitted, to be praised or to be envied, to impress on others deeply. Teenagers are in a period of developing self-consciousness. They especially hope to get respect and appreciation. Teachers are expected to take students self-esteem seriously and treat students in terms of appreciation to satisfy their need.It is often seen that teachers just say “Sit down please” after a student finishes a question and dont comment on the answer. Its believed that it would be better if teachers add some other words like “Well done”, “You really did a good job”, “Good”. Though they are simple, to some extent, these praises evaluate students work. So a teacher should be aware of giving praises in his teaching. If a teacher asks a question, and when the students fail to answer, the teacher may say “You are such a stupid student that you cant answer such a simple question. Why you cant do it?” The blamed one feels hurt, because the teacher makes him lose face in front of his classmates and he will be looked down upon by them. The freedom to make errors is deprived of.Its unavoidable for students to make mistakes in the learning process, especially for the students who are not so good at learning. Teachers treatments are significant. Indifference, scold will certainly hurt their self-esteem and confidence. An increase in self-esteem and self-confidence will lead to increased learner effort in language learning and a greater willingness to take risks or to continue attempting to make ones views understood.5.1.3 WillLeontiev discusses the concept of will. A volitional act, according to Leontiev (1981), is the conscious choice of one of several possible options which arise as the result of a struggle between motives.It is perhaps “will” which Streves (1978) has in mind when he lists learning stamina, or the ability to maintain the learning effort for a period of time, as one of the several crucial factors contributed by the learner in second language acquisition. For success to occur, learners must be persistent despite obstacles they may encounter. English teachers should be fully aware of the characters of will in junior students. Few teenagers have a long will span as they do something out of impulse. The junior make up their mind to learn, however, they find the words that they memorized well the night before were forgotten the next day. However hard they try, they can hardly get effect and find they need to put more energy to learn English than any other subject but get little effect. Gradually, the students come to realize that English is so hard to learn, and give it up. Teachers should keep students going on when they lose heart. They may tell them it does cost time to learn English well, but not just blame the students lazy and stupid. Teachers make the students notice that persistence is worthy, and success will come one day. Encouragement maybe not so effective, but its better than blame. Encouragement may not stir the students to study harder while blame and disapproval will certainly make them give up.5.2 AnxietyIn some cases, anxiety seems to enhance performance while in other cases, its negative. According to Alpert and Haber (1960), that is facilitating anxiety and debilitating anxiety.Kleinmans (1977) study is a good example of the interplay between these two types of anxiety. Kleinman found that students who scored high on items designed to measure facilitative anxiety (e.g. Nervousness while using English helps me do better) employed certain structures in English which other members of their language group tended to avoid. In other words, those students who scored high on facilitative anxiety were emotionally equipped to approach (to fight in primitive terms) the very structure that their peers tend to avoid. 5.2.1 Facilitating anxietyFacilitating anxiety motivates learners to “fight” the new learning task; it gears the learner emotionally for approval behavior.Some students seldom take English seriously, because they dont think it matters whether they learn it or not, especially for the students who dont study well. Teachers should