英语论文
- 格式：doc
- 大小：96.50 KB
- 文档页数：16
Affective factors in English learningA thesisPresented toThe foreign language departmentfor the degree of ArtsBy Y ang jieMarch 2010摘要现在外语学习尤其是英语学习发挥着越来越重要的作用，从而外语教学一直处于关键位置。
但是它的效率低，效果不理想，难以充分满足学生的需要。
传统的外语教学中老师占着极为重要的主导型作用，而学生更像是容器，而不是一个充满感情的人，外语教学似乎旨在培养个体在封闭空间的生活，因为学生在学习中极度缺乏实践（特别是口头交流）。
而这又成为了教师的主要教学方法。
情感的重要性及它与认知之间密不可分的联系通常被忽略了。
在近几十年来，由于人文心理和改善教育观念的影响，第二语言或外语教学研究人员已逐渐改变其在影响学习的因素的中心研究。
本文第一部分是引言，第二部分为文献综述，第三部分是研究方法简介，第四部分即为我的分析和研究结论，这部分首先重点分析了各种情感因素，它们的作用和我国现存的英语学习中的情感问题，然后就这些问题提出解决的对策。
在这个问题上的研究具有较大的现实意义,本文旨在呼吁对英语学习过程中情感因素的广泛关注，并探讨如何帮助学习者消除不利影响并在这一过程中构建积极因素，以发展自己的语言能力，促进学习效率，从而促进人的全面发展。
关键词：情感因素、外语学习、情感问题、解决对策AbstractNowdays foreign language learning especially English has played a more and more important role, thus FLT has been placed in a crucial position. However its low efficiency and unsatisfactory effect can hardly meet learners needs adequately.Traditional foreign language teaching puts too much weight on the teacher‟s role, while learners are regarded more as receptacle rather than a person with feelings; Foreign language teaching seemed aiming to bring up indivisuals living in isolation cages because students are terribly in lack of practice(especially oral communication) in the teacher dominant teaching method. the importance of affect and the inseparation relation between affect and cognition are generally overlooked in education itself. In recent several decades, partly due to the impact from humanistic psychology and improved notions of education, researchers on second or foreign language learning and teaching has gradually changed its center to the study of multiple variables which influence learning.The first part of my research is Introduction, the second part is literature review, the third part is the research methods,. The last part shall be my analysis and research findings, in this part, first focused on analyzing a variety of affective factors, their role and our existing affective problems in the English learning process, then proposing solutions to these issues CountermeasuresThe research in this issue has large practical significance. This thesis sets out to appeal for extensive attention toward affective factors in English learning process, and explore ways to help learners to eliminate negative affects and construct positive ones in that process, so as to develop their language proficiency and promote learning effect and efficiency as well as learners‟development as a whole person.Key words:affective factors;English learning;affective problems;strategies1.IntroductionThe quickening globalization has heightened the need for effective foreign language learning. As in China, with the entrance of WTO and development of country. FL T(foreign language teaching) has been put in a crucial position. However, its low efficiency and unsatisfactory effect can hardly meet learners‟needs adequately. This problem undoubtedly owes a lot to the negligence of learners‟ affective state in the process of teaching and learning.Several years ago, it was the study of non-learner factors which affect language learning outcome such as language itself and the teaching methods that attracted researchers‟ attention. But language and the teaching methods are external causes, which, according to Materialist dialectics, become operative only through internal causes (the learner himself) in the acquisition of knowledge and communicative competence in a foreign language.(viewpoints of Materialist dialectics).And with the problem in foreign language learning and teaching ,in recent years ,it has been realized that the study of the learner himself should be put in the first place.As a matter of fact,experts in the field of psychology and education have long been conscious of the significance of affect since 1960‟s when the humanistic psychology came to the fore.Their main theories are: affect is the basic need of human being ;cognition and affect are inseparable;learners‟proficiency is fulfilled to the largest extent when both cognition and affect are involved. Language experts and researchers in the west also tried to explore the field of affect and made both theoretical and practical study over the past several decades.They found that learners‟affective state influences the learning behavior and learning effect directly.They have also tried to give consideration to the affective factors in foreign language learning and teaching theories as well as approaches.However, in the present foreign language classroom, especially in China, learners‟affective factors in the learning process have not called enough attention or even been totally neglected.Inadequate job in the affective domain has inevitably led to the present situation of inefficient and ineffective foreign language teaching and learning.In view of this situation, this thesis aims at appealing for people‟s attention toward affective factors in foreign language learning , seeks ways to remove learners‟affective barriers and construct positive affects.So first in the Literature Review of abroad and China includes SLA theories involving affective factors and FL T methods taking affect into consideration and Literature Review of China. Then in the Methodology, I introduces the subjects and resource of related materials and research methods in my thesis. And in the fourth part, results and analysis, Affect and its important role in English learning are first been analyzed ,then based on former experts‟achievement and present author‟s practice, principles and strategies are put forward to deal with the problem of how to help foreign language learners‟eliminate negative affects and construct positive affects,so as to promote the affect and efficiency of foreign language learning aswell as learners‟ whole-person development.2.Literature Review2.1Literature Review of abroadIn recent several decades, partly due to the impact from humanistic psychology and improved notions of education,researches on second of foreign language learning has gradually changed its center to the study of multiple variables which influence learning.V ariables as learning processes,learning context or environment,cognitive factors and affective factors have invited researchers‟ great interests. Researchers investigated and experimented from different standpoint. Among them the research related to psycholinguistics obtained notable achievements comparatively. Under such background, the influence of affective factors to language learning attracted much attention, and efforts have been made to explore ways of incorporating aspects of the affective dimension of the learner into language learning.2.11 SLA theories involved affective factorsThe significant role of affective factors in language learning has been discussed and emphasized in various second language acquisition theories.In Schumann‟s Acculturation Model (Schumann,1978), acculturation is determined by the degree of social and psychological distance between the learner and the target language culture. Since second language acquisition is one aspect of acculturation, this distance determines it too. Psychological distance is the result of various affective factors that concern the learner as an individual. They include the doubt and confusion the learner experience when using the L2(language shock); motivation and ego boundaries; the disorientation, stress, fear, etc that the learner experiences as a result of differences between his or her own culture and that of the target language community(culture shock). When the psychological distance is great, i.e, when the negative affective factors exist, the learner will fail to convert available input into intake.In the Accommodation Theory, Giles (1977) regards motivation (one of affective factors) as the primary determinant of L2 proficiency. He considers the level of motivation to be a reflex of how individual learners define themselves in ethnic terms.When motivation is high as a result of favorable socio-psychological attitudes, the learner will benefit from formal instruction in the L2, and is also likely to avail himself of the opportunities for informal acquisition. Hence when the individual learner is likely to be highly motivated to learn the L2, he or she acquires a high level of proficiency.Krashen‟s Monitor Model, which has obtained considerable prominence in SLA research,consists of five central hypotheses. One of these five is the Affective Filter Hypothesis. This hypothesis deals with how affective factors relate to SLA. According to Krashen (1981), the affective filter controls how much input the learner comes into contact with, and how much input is converted into intake.Affect and affective factors are also mentioned in other SLA theories such as Discourse Theory, Interlanguage Theory,etc(Ellis, 1985).2.12 FLT methods taking affect into accountThe concern about individual learners‟affective state in second language acquisition is genuinely a great step forward in SLA research. In the late 1970s and 1980s foreign and secondlanguage teaching experts and researchers began to explore specific ways of incorporating the affect development into language teaching and learning. Many of the major development in language teaching methods during the past thirty years are related to the need to acknowledge affect in language learning. The teaching methods came to the fore in 1970s -- Suggestopedia, the Silent Way, Community Language Learning and Total Physical Response – all take into account the affective side of language learning in a very central manner.Suggestopedia, developed by the Bulgarian psychiatrist-educator Georgi Lozanov(1978) is the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy. It‟s even a little mystical for the decoration, furniture, and arrangement of the classroom, the use of music, and the authoritative behavior of the teacher. However, all these are used to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful and, thus, to help them overcome the barriers to learning. (Larsen-Freeman, 1986) Undoubtedly, affective barrier is the target that should be got rid of in this method.Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which has had pervasive influence on language teaching, give affect its due attention too. It appeared in the late 1970s as a reaction to structuralism and to methods that neglected teaching learners to communicate as well as the important affective aspects of learning. As Richards and Rodgers pointed out (1986:83), “Communicative Language Teaching appealed to those who sought a more humanistic approach to teaching, one which the interactive process of communication received priority”. In CLT, teacher is a facilitator of students‟ learning; learners are motivated to study foreign language since they feel they are learning for use; security is enhanced through many cooperative interactions. 2.2Some Relevant Researches in ChinaSince the middle of 1980s, studies on the relationship between learner variables and learning outcomes appeared in China, among which there was no lack of research on the relationship between affective variables and language learning outcomes. Hua huifang(1998) published ‘the studies on English Learning Motivation and Strategy Use’,and explored the effect of motivation on strategy use.‟Affective Filter in Foreign Language Learning‟ by Liu jianda (1996) introduced the affective filter hypothesis and examined its important role in foreign language learning. Y ang fengning‟s …Psychological Factors and Its Revelation to Foreign Language Teaching’is also very revealing (Y ang fengning,1993). Wu bo (1996) summarized the most important findings in personality research and examplified the effect of personality factors on foreign language learning by a detailed discussion of extroversion. Two important research studies concentrate on the relationship between affective variables and oral English learning and teaching. One is‟On the Relationship between Classroom Anxiety and Spoken English Proficiency’(chen jie,1997); the other is …learner Factors and Oral English Teaching‟ by Li zhiqin (1999), which mainly discusses the effect of such affective factors as …motivation, self-image‟ on oral English teaching. Generally speaking, research studies in this field in China do not abound, more efforts should be put in this area later on.In summary, affect and affective factors have invited much attention in the field of second or foreign language learning. At present, no one can deny the significant role of affect in language learning. Teachers and experts have also done a lot in the work of controlling affects rationally to promote language learning, which surely leave much resource for further exploration on affective language education.3.Methodology3.1 SubjectsThe subject of my research is …Affective factors in English learning‟, compared with cognition, the affective factors have not gained too much attention. But affective factors do play an important role in the language learning process. So I will analyze them in my thesis and put forward some strategies to eliminate negative factors and construct positive ones to improve the efficiency of learning.3.2 Resource of related materialsThe text materials used mainly com e from the master's research papers and expert‟s papers who have a wealth of teaching experience. Because the subject of the study is that affective factors in the role of English language learning, involving the psychology of knowledge, some of the definitions is selected from some well-known psychologist‟s definitions. Moreover, English teaching and learning are closely linked, so an experienced educator‟s article is also very worth considering. In the selected quantity, my main reference is in the qualitative study of definition, while the quantitative research is mainly from my own questionnaire results.3.3 Research MethodsThis paper uses qualitative research and quantitative research these two research methods. In qualitative research, I first analyzed the definition of a variety of affective factors, as well as its role in English learning, and then analyzed the current Chinese English learners‟affective problems. At last I put forward some method to build positive affective factors and eliminate negative emotional factors. In quantitative research, I mainly carried out a small questionnaire survey, and then to investigate the data collected for the analysis of the object, and to prove some points.In order to obtain a better understanding of the affective state of Chinese foreign language learners and the affective problems springing up during the course of language learning, a small-scale investigation was issued by myself to 140 non-English major grade-one students in Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in December, 2009, through questionnaire and interviews. The investigation covers affective factors as anxiety, motivation, self-evaluation, and causal attribution to success and failure, etc.In the 140 non-English major grade-one students, 63 boys and 77 girls, mainly project management, finance and other professional learning. They are mainly classroom learning and self-supplemented. Because in the questionnaires male to female ratio was almost equal, and the investigation of professional more, it has a certain representation and can to a certain extent reflects the current college students‟ English learning situation. However, as time and energy constraints, the questionnaire is in small quantities, with limited representation. After Collecting the data, I used the EXCEL office software to do the corresponding data processing. I mainly apply the Sum function and probability function.4. Results and Analysis4.1 Affect factors and its important role in English learningTo explore the domain of affect in foreign language learning, a relative broad understanding of the meaning of variety affective factors and its important role in the learning process should be possessed by learners and teachers at first. Thus, in this part, these will be detected and analyzedto provide clues for the solution of affective problems. I analyzed these factors with the help of my questionnaire‟ findings.I classified affect factors into two big categories, namely, Individual factors and Relational factors. And individual factors include anxiety, motivation, self-esteem and inhibition. And relational factors mainly include Empathy, Classroom transactions, Cross-cultural awareness.4.11 motivation. Most people admit that learning is most likely to occur when they want to learn. However, it may more difficult to explain: what is motivation? What factors contribute to a person‟s motivation and how they influence the motivation? What the difference between kinds of motivations?There are a lot of definations about motivation. Gardne(1985)r thought that motivation of a foreign language learning is the combination of four parts :goal of learning the language,desire to achieve the goal,favorable attitude towards learnig the language,and effort. Hilgard,Atkinson and Atkinson (1979:281) put forward a concept that motivation is actually a cluster of factors that “energize behavior and give it derection”. So,the concept of motivation is composed of many different and overlapping factors such as interest, curiosity, or a desire to achieve.Language teachers who believe in the roles of affective factors in language learning and who have been conscious of the existing problems in Chinese English language learning have conducted some investigations to learn learners‟affective state in English language learning during the past ten years. They have found that affective problems arising in the process of English language learning exist extensively among learners, and influence the effect and efficiency of learning to a degree.Wen weiping (1997) and her colleagues launched an investigation of English learners‟ affective state through questionanaires in Xiangtan University in 1992. they have 869 subjects.The following &&is the findings of my questionnaire‟s findings about the learners‟English learning motivation and the findings of Wen weiping and her colleagues‟.position learningFrom the diagram, we can seee that most students study English for passing examinations or for future position, just a few learners learn the foreign language for the intrinsic reasons as for interest or for the desire to be learned. Meanwhile, a relative not small number of learners admit they will give up foreign language learning if possible.Generally, Wen weiping et al‟s investigation indicates that most students learn English passively with relative low motivation. Most of them are learning English for future position of passing examnations and with relative low motivation. Also in my finding, it has the similar results with Wen‟s. A lot of students‟s learning motivation is relatively unencouraging. Similar tendency in motivation is also shown in both investigations that made by Zhang linhua (2000) in Nanchang College and that conducted by Ma xiaomei et al (1999) in Xi‟an University of Communications. Affect is one of the important factors which presuppose the enhancement of students‟ learning efficiency. If the students lack in the necessary enthusiasm for learning, they will not be active-minded and even suffer from serious psychological barriers. So it is agreed on that good motivation of learning encourages students to learn and that if a student has no interest in anything, he will not have a thirst for knowledge. On the contrary, the appropriate happy mood one is in can help him to be energetic and quick-minded, thus making full use of his potentials.4.12 anxietyAnxiety is an uncomfortable feeling in the mind, ususlly caused by the fear or expectation that something bad will happen. It is often associated with negative emotions such as apprehension, tension, frustration, self-doubt, uneasiness, etc. “Language anxiety is fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in second or foreign language”(Gardner&MacIntyre, 1993: 157)In foreign language classroom, anxiety may arise in various situations. According to existential anxiety rising out of a group situation, Heron (1989: 33) distinguished three interconnected anxiety relevant to the language classroom: Acceptance anxiety, Orientation anxiety and performance anxiety, which relevant to different questions. The questions are respectively: will I be accepted, liked or wanted? Will I be able to do what I have come to learn? Actually, anxiety may rise in other forms too. It may rise when the learner can‟t understand the input as receiver apprehension; it may rise when the can‟t express his or her idea as oral communication apprehension; it may arise when be faced with a test as test anxiety; it may arise when a mistake is made as a worry of negative social evaluation…All these mean that we should be in attention at each moment to prevent the occurrence of anxiety or decrease its harm.And according to Wen weiping‟s questionanaires, 45%students experienced anxiety in English learning, which involved 27.6% expression apprehension, 18.4% receiver anxiety and 21.5% test anxiety. As it‟s showed in the following diagram：apprehension anxietyWe can see from the figure that nearly half of the students are experiencing anxiety in the English learning process, and anxiey is a kind of relatively bad mood. Good affect factors ensures the upholding and the improvement of students‟ physical and psychological fitness. The negative anxiety is called “debilitating anxiety” because it makes language performance and avoidance of the foreign language. On the cognitive side, debilitating anxiety closely connects with worry, which wastes learners‟ energy that should be used for memory and processing on thinking.4.13 cross-cultural awarenessForeign language learning and the target culture learning cannot be separated. It is crucial that foreign language learners should become aware of differing cultural frameworks, both their own and those of others; otherwise they will use their own cultural system to interpret target-language messages whose intended meaning may well be predicted on quite different cultural assumptions (Hinkel, 1999 :197). With the words of Kramsch (1993:1), “it (culture)‟s always in the background (of foreign language learning)”, it is not only an expendable fifth skill besides speaking, listening, reading and writing. Language learners need try to know various aspects of the target culture, or it may consequently block their perception of the surrounding world. In the second language situation, a successful language learner especially has to be able and willing to adopt the target culture.In my questionnaire, nearly a half of the students who are learning the foreign language think that they are not clear with the target culture (44.12%) and admit they will feel at a loss what to do when facing a foreigner (44.12%). While, there are also a few (17.65%) learners learning the foreign language for the purpose of understanding the target culture and communicating with the foreigners. We can see these figure vividly in the following picture:target culture purpose ofunderstandingSo from these figure, we can see that acculturation or acceptance of another is not easy. Culture involes “the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behavior, social habits, etc. of the members of the particular society”(Richards, et al, 2000:117). It fills people‟s biological and psychological need; it constructs for people the context of cognitive and affective behavior. Its content is so extensive and complicated that it‟s not strange for the second language learners to feel “culture shock” or the foreign language learners to feel emotional difficulties when facing the foreign culture no matter inside or outside the classroom. While in the contemporary world, the representatives of the target culture: popular music, movies, the media, tourism and the multi-cultural nature of some social organizations combine to ensure the sooner or later encounter or the foreign culture. If the basic sense of cross-cultural in ot prepared, students will undoubtedly experience certain emotional collision as rejection, anxiety or fear, which will exhaust their great amouts of energy to deal with, not to mention learners being exposed in cross-cutural learning experiences intentionally.4.1.4 other affective factorsSelf-esteem. Self-esteem is a personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitudes the individual holds towards himself. No matter what people do, they have an evaluation towards themselves, towards their ability of competence. Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem. It is a psychological barrier set up to protect self from the outside threat.In my questionnaire, 34.2% learners admitted that they felt inferior in English class, 15% often experienced frustration and discouragement.Empathy.Empathy means putting oneself in another place. It is the quality of being able to imagine and share the thoughts, feeling, and point of view of people. There are 39.4% participants who thought teachers helped little in English language learning, 27.6% felt the English class dull and uninteresting, 31.8% complained that teachers talk too much while learners lack practice in classroom.The above results suggest that the subjects in my investigation also bear affective problems in foreign language learning, which cover the affective factors form motivation, anxiety to culture shock. The investigation prove once again that negative affects have accompained a great part of foreign language learners‟ language learning more or less.To sum up, the affective state of English learners in China is not encouraging. Affective problems exist among the learners extensively. The present situation rings the bell of warning to all the foreign language learners and teachers, who have not paid attention to the affective domain in teaching and learning. Without improvement, the inefficient and unsatisfactory situation will remain and even turn worse.Finding ways to tackle learners‟affective problems has become a task allowing of no delay in China. More efforts need to be made to concern the affective factors and problems in English learning process, to take measures to help foreign language learners overcome negative affects and construct positive ones, so as to facilitate learning. Though the fulfillment of the task may involve great hardship, it will be worthwhile.4.2 Suggested T eaching S trategiesAs mentioned in the former chapters, the affective factors affecting English learning are intertwined and interrelated. It is impossible to isolate completely the influence of any one of them and to tackle them in an isolated way. Former researchers‟ and experts‟ efforts also proved that it is impossible to solve the learners‟ affective problems in a so-called perfect approach. Thus, to find some guiding principles and feasible strategies which can be adopted in any English classrooms are more practical than to seek for one perfect way.Removing learners‟ negative affective barriers paves way for the growth of positive affects, and the development of positive affects in turn helps the elimination of negative ones. Thus, helping learners solve the affective problems needs the efforts from both the removal of negative affective factors and the construction of positive affective factors. In this chapter, efforts will be engaged in the exploration of basic strategies that could lead to foreign language learners‟ overcoming their negative affects and building up positive ones. The exploration will be carried out respectively from the angle of learner, teacher, and classroom transaction, because these three aspects are basic and indispensable in English learning process.4.21 Helping learners build a healthy self-conceptSelf-conecpt is the image a person has of himself or herself. It involves the perception of the comparison between self and others, of how other people view the self and of what kind of person the self wants to be. As described by Rogers (1959), the concept of self consists of two parts: the ideal self and the real self, or in other words, the subjective one who perceives the self-I, and the objective one being perceived-Me. When there is incongruence between these two concepts, that is, if there ia an unhealthy self-concept, complex emotional experience will be aroused; people will suffer anxiety, confusion or other emotional pains.A healthy self-concept is crucial for learners. It helps them to keep the inner congruence and provides them rational explanation for experience. It also decides learners‟ expectation fao future success. Self-concept connects closely to self-esteem and other affective factors in English learning, such as anxiety, motivation, etc. Most ways of behaving adopted by people are consistent with the concept of self. When a student holds a negative self-concept on his English learning, and believes that all classmates regard him to be the left-behind, he will choose to let himself go and give up any efforts in foreign language learning for the lack of confidence and motivation. Facing the same score, a student who thinks himself average may feel satisfied and cheerful; on the contrary, a student who thinks himself a top one in the class may be frustrated. When learners hold a negative self-concept, they will relate any experience with negative self-evaluation; when they。
