The Effect Of Affect On Foreign Language Learning And Its Enlightenment To College English Teaching

The latter half of the twentieth century has witnessed a shift in interest in foreign language teaching research from teachers'teaching t o students'learning, since researchers have realized that the teaching materials and methods are only external causes, which become operative only through internal causes (the learner himself) in the acquisition of knowledge and communicative competence in a foreign language. Shu Ding-fang (1995) points out that by the study of the foreign language learners, we can get some idea of the characteristics of the foreign language learning process, so that we might devise courses and activities and create environments in accordance with the objective principles of foreign language learning.There are two research traditions in the field of SLA research: the study of common processes of learning and the study of individual differences (IDs). The study of IDs covers those cognitive, affective and biological characteristics of individual learners. Cognitive factors have traditionally been thought of as the key factors in differential success in learning a foreign language. But it has been realized that affective factors are as important as, if not important than, cognitive factors. According to educational psychology, affective variables such as attitude, motivation and personality factors account greatly for foreign language learning efficiency and success, aind different attitude, motivation and personality characteristics affect the learning outcomes of the learners. In this thesis, the author, on the basis of the achievements made by the scholars home and abroad, explored the effect of affective factors on foreign language learning. A small-scale survey about the affective state of non-English majors was carried out, and tentative relations ofstudents' affective state and language proficiency were found. At the end of the thesis, three suggestions were made on College English Teaching.This thesis consists of seven parts, including the introduction and conclusion. The introduction discusses the theoretical underpinning and explains why the author has chosen this subject.Chapter one discusses the role affect plays in school education and in foreign language teaching and learning. It is divided into three parts. Part one defines 'affect' and 'affective variables'; part two illustrates the important role affect plays in school education, which manifest itself in three aspects: (1) Affect presupposes the enhancement of students'learning efficiency; (2) Affect is very important in the development of students'morality; (3) Affect ensures the upholding and improvement of students'physical and psychological fitness; The third part introduces the ideas of humanistic psychology and Krashen's "Affective Filter Hypothesis", and illustrates the important role affect plays in foreign language teaching and learning.Chapter two presents a brief review of the research history. Research findings of scholars home and abroad in motivation, attitude and personality factors are introduced respectively.Chapter three, Chapter four and Chapter five are the body of this paper.Chapter three discusses the effect of motivation and attitude on second/foreign language learning. It is divided into two parts. The first part introduces the concept of motivation, the categorization of motivation, and the sources of motivation, and discusses the relation between motivation and language learning success. The second part gives the definition of attitude and then illustrates the effect of attitudeon foreign language learning by analyzing the relationship between attitude and motivation.In chapter four, there are three parts. Part one first defines 'personality', and then problems in the research of the personality are poined out and the necessity of research in this field is illustrated. Part two introduces the effect of such personality factors as anxiety, extroversion & introversion, risk-taking, self-esteem, empathy and inhibition on second/foreign language learning. A summary abo...