A Brief Analysis on the Roles of Non-intelligence Factors in College English Study 非智力因素对英语学.doc

A Brief Analysis on the Roles of Non-intelligence Factors in College English Study 非智力因素对英语学习的影响AbstractAs early as twentieth century, with the development of concept of intelligence and psychological tests, the concept of non-intelligence factors emerged. Alexander, the American psychologist, came up with the concept of nonintellectual factors firstly in his essay Intelligence: The concrete and the abstract. Then in 1950 nonintellectual factors were formally put forward by the famous American psychometrical Wechsler. Psychological research shows that learning a foreign language is the process of learners (intrinsic factor) and learning environment (external cause),and the internal factors include two aspects: intellectual and nonintellectual factors, and the nonintellectual factors play an important role in the study. This paper is discussing the roles of such nonintellectual factors during the English study in the college. It develops with the learning situation of the learning of college students, along with the years of experience and observation about students English study and some theories that are keys to my research on the role of nonintellectual factors during the study. My paper will introduce the main six nonintellectual factors, how they play the role in the study, and end with my personal conclusion that we should advocate the students, the teachers, the college and even Ministry of Education to pay much more attention to the development of students nonintellectual factors. Key words: nonintellectual factors; roles; college English study.A Brief Analysis on the Roles of Nonintellectual Factors in College English StudyOutlineThesis Statement: This essay takes examples and researches to tell the role of nonintellectual factors in the college English study and then points out that the nonintellectual factors play a very important role in the college English study. I IntroductionII. Roles of Nonintellectual Factors in College English Study. A. InterestB. MotivationC. EmotionD. VolitionE. Beliefs F. CharacterIII. ConclusionA Brief Analysis on the Roles of Nonintellectual Factors in College English Study. IntroductionIt is well known that the English language has become a universal language and is far more widespread than any other one. It is the language used for international communication trade and commerce which makes it as a very important and indispensable tool in this age of globalization.Nowadays, the economy of the world is increasing, and the connection of each country is enhanced, thus the world is becoming smaller and smaller. English as a common language among the world is necessary for us, and Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics showed the importance of English ability for our Chinese people. Thus, there are an increasing number of people to learn English, and colleges also absorb more and more students to learn English. However, the situation of the college English studying is not so satisfied. For some of the college students chose English as his major under his parents willing, but not his mind. Or some of them dont know the way to study, and dont pay the attention to nonintellectual factors during the study.May researches showed that someones success is decided by nonintellectual factors at 80%, however, the intellectual factors counts only 20%. And one of the famous scientists said that in the progress of the world it is not the talent that pulls the world, but how we use the talent. Those words pointed out that the importance of nonintellectual factors in the progress of the world. Likewise, nonintellectual factors also play a very important role in the college English study, and they are the key elements to get success in studies.Language studying is a complicated progress of psychological acknowledgement and skills learning, especially the English learning which is enslaved many factors. And the psychology research shows that learning a foreign language have two aspects the learners (internal) and the learning environment (external), and the internal elements include intellectual and nonintellectual factors. Generally speaking, there are two ways to define nonintellectual factors. The generalized nonintellectual factor refers to the all psychological factors, and in a narrow way, the nonintellectual factors include Interest, Motivation, Emotion, Volition, Beliefs, and Character. In the next part I will introduce each of them, and analyze how they play the role in the college English studying. . Role of Nonintellectual Factors in College English Study A. Interest Interest is a feeling or emotion that causes attention to focus on an object or an event or a process. In contemporary psychology of interest, the term is used as a general concept that may encompass other more specific psychological terms, such as curiosity and to a much lesser degree surprise.Personal interest is the individual with the specific thing, activity and artificial object, the positive and sometimes tendentious, selective attitude and emotions.Interest is not only for the surface of a thing. It occurs when you obtain the knowledge or get emotional satisfactory after participating some activities. And interest is not only referred to ones acknowledge, but also linked his emotions. If he even doesnt know the thing, he certainly wont have emotion to it, nevertheless the interest to it. On the contrary, if he knows it well, then he will have a great emotion to it, then it will arouse his great interest. Finally, he will show his willingness as well as his pleasure when he does it. Besides, interest will show its invisible power to help him to get more from it.Einstein once said: “Interest is the best teacher.”One of the famous American psychologists pointed out that in his In the progress of Education the best motivation is the interest in it, and the interest to what you are learning will help you learning initiative, thus improve your efficiency of work or study. However, in the college, amount of students are not willing to study English, because they were forced by their parents or teachers, and even have little interest in English. Although they are still study in the classroom, remembering words and doing practices, their mind is not willing and it just work like a dull. So there is no doubt that they cant study well.Having cultivated students interest of learning English, the students will not feel that learning is a burden if they are interested in studying. They will put their hearts into learning actively. Arousing the interest of the students is the key to learn English well. Learning interest can promote the students to throw themselves into studying enthusiastically. It also can enrich the students knowledge, open the students mind and make up for a weakness of intelligent development.Since interest is so important in English study for college students, how could we make students being interested in English learning? Generally we can spread the possibility of this aim by the following methods. Firstly, we should change our traditional perception about English teaching and learning and bring the real balance of teaching and learning into classes. In the conventional teaching model, all the students in a college share the same teaching plan and teaching process, the students are responsible for learning English well, and the teachers only concentrate on how to teaching well. Thus, the teaching section and the learning section are separated into two independent parts without individualization and pertinence. As a result, most of the students cannot learn every lesson step by step, lacks of real communication and requirements exchanging with their teachers, and are forced to move on to new lessons. Then less and less students are interested in English learning because they confront many difficulties in English learning without concern, they fall behind of the teaching plan an teaching process of their college, and finally lose faith in English learning. No wonder there is even no change in their English level after several years of college English study in their university. To make things worse, a large number of college graduates only can speak out several simple English words such as hello, go, good after a whole decade of English learning from middle school to university. I am afraid that the conventional English teaching in our education system is one the maximum failure of education in history. The only way to switch this situation is to change. On one hand keeping the balance of teaching and learning, concerning the individualization and pertinence of teaching plan and teaching process, and ensuring that all students have a solid foundation are the priorities in college English teaching. On the other hand the students also should speak out their ideas and needs whenever they confront difficulties and problems in English study. Thus every student has a solid foundation of the English knowledge and skills they have learnt which makes them easier to learn new lessons. Then students will be very interested in English learning and their study of English becomes a positive cycle.Secondly, we can change the teaching pattern to increase the interests of students in English learning. In a conventional class, the teacher speaks and the students just listen and take notes. As all known, language learning is totally different from other knowledge learning; it needs more practice than understanding and thinking. Therefore, the creative English class should be an interactive class in which the main role of teachers is to lead the students to practice and that the students play the main role in the whole class. This new teaching pattern will bring mutual benefits to teachers and students. The teachers will have more energy and time to stimulate the enthusiasm of students and to concern on the individual needs of each student as a guide. Students will be very happy to learn English and their teachers help them to improve their weakness and to solve difficulties during the process of practice.Thirdly, the teaching material should be changed to increase the interests of students in English learning. On the one hand, most of our textbooks are out of date. Students are not familiar with those ancient stories and in consequence they are not interested in them. So the design of textbooks should concern the present living conditions of college students to arouse their enthusiasm. On the other hand, each section of English learning, speaking listening, reading and writing, should be closely interrelated and be arranged scientifically and reasonably. This will make the learning of each section easier and more efficient. B. MotivationWhat exactly is motivation? Lets work back from some basics. Think about all those detective programmers on TV. When a murder is committed, there is always talking of the “motive”. What they are asking is “what was the reason for the murder?” What reason did the murderer have for committing the crime? Extending this to motivation is relatively easy. Motivation refers to the reason why we do things. Now think about your personal situation: why are you studying? What is the goal you are aiming for? Maybe you want to do it for your parents or your teacher; maybe it is simply that you want to prove to yourself that you can do it! Whatever it is, it is a reason that drives you to do it.Motivation is typically defined as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behavior. Nevertheless, many teachers have at least two major misconceptions about motivation that prevent them from using this concept with maximum effectiveness. One misconception is that some students are unmotivated. Strictly speaking, that is not an accurate statement. As long as a student chooses goals and expends a certain amount of effort to achieve them, he is, by definition, motivated. What teachers really mean is that students are not motivated to behave in the way teachers would like them to behave. The second misconception is that one person can directly motivate another. This view is inaccurate because motivation comes from within a person. What you can do, with the help of the various motivation theories discussed in this chapter, is create the circumstances that influence students to do what you want them to do.Without motivation in English study, students will not attach importance to English learning. As a result, they do not concentrate their attention in lessons and probably give up whenever face difficulties. So, motivation is crucial in the process of English learning and the motivation only generates in students own mind. The following two methods can make the students highly motivated.Firstly, making students realized the importance of English learning can stimulate their motivation to study English. College students have learnt English for almost ten years, but they never know the real reason why they should learn English. Usually, they learn English because they have to pass exams and that their parents and teachers force them to learn. Factually, to master a second language is very difficult. No one is willing to confront difficult things if it is not necessary. If every student understand the reason why they should learn English well, it is certain that most of them will be highly motivated. On long terms, most students are required to apply English in their work when they graduate from their universities and begin their career. If they do not learn English well and have a solid foundation of English knowledge and skills, they will meet many difficulties and sometimes they lose opportunities and even job just for their English language weakness. All companies want those who have prepared and qualified and they are not places to learn the knowledge they should have learnt in universities. For this reason, students who want to have a bright future after graduation in their position have to learn English well. Real stories should be told in classes by those who regret not learning English well in college time.Except students whose major is English, college students have to pass the CET-4 to be qualified for a graduate diploma. Higher education contains foreign language around the world. Since they are in universities to receive higher education, English is a course they have to learn. Learning the course well and passing the CET-4 is a goal they have to achieve.Secondly, encouragement and stimulation are two important factors to make student highly motivated in English learning. For example, if universities can hold a certain number of competitions related to English learning during an academic year both in classes and in college, each student will have a chance to participate in those competitions and to prove their abilities and learning results. Many students will be highly motivated to prepare those competitions because the competitions provide a platform for them to show their talents and to transform their hardworking efforts in to prize or progress.C. EmotionEmotion consists of ones feelings about the environments. Everyone experiences emotions, but few people can accurately identify them, except for some intense ones such as fear and anger. This inability to identify them has several effects: it results in a lack of self-awareness and so inhibits the full development of self-consciousness; it creates confusion in our relationships and hinders the achievements of our aims and ideals; it is a major source of self-deception in theories of human nature, especially in theories that centre on understanding morality and sources of conflict and violence. The concrete expressions of emotion are ones attitudes towards the environments. They could be happy, angry, and painful, like and dislike. Feelings decide expressions while expressions decide behaviors and behaviors reflect sense of value. Therefore emotion decides the sense of value of a person. Processing what kind of emotion means a person will take corresponding actions. The reason why emotion is important in English learning is that the emotion a student holds will greatly affect his attitude and action in the learning process. Understanding the nature of emotion enables a person to handle better the problems of everyday life.Emotion plays a very important role in college English study. The following statements can prove this theory. If a student is happy while learning English, it is certain that he will learn more and faster. There is no doubt that when we feel happy while doing something, we are willing and ready to make great effort to fulfill it and overcome the difficulties we meet. If a student totally dislikes English study, how could he make progresses in English learning? So to a certain extent the emotion students hold towards English learning decide how well they could learning English.On one hand, the universities and teacher should find the reason why some of the students hold a negative emotion towards English learning and make possible changes to switch the negative emotion to positive emotion. Some kind of departments shall pay more attention on those who have bad behavior in recent English exams though communicating with them and help then to process a positive emotion towards English learning. On the other hand, the students themselves should understand what kind of emotion they hold towards English learning and find the real reason. Then they can change their attitude or ask help from teachers or classmates. Though the above two methods, students are helped to processes a positive emotion towards English learning and they will be to have English classes. This surely will bring good results for their