A Study Of Memorization In Chinese College English Learning-An Affect Perspective

Memory refers to an important psychological process; memorization is a significant learning activity in English learning. The previous studies show there is a close relationship between memory and learning. Therefore, memorization in English learning goes without saying. Inadequately, the previous achievements mainly come from cognition psychology, concentrating on the information processing in memory. Explorations to the affect state in foreign language memorization are relatively few. Comparatively, studies of affect in foreign language education have focused on the implication of its importance and its application in the general field, without special treatment to specific learning activity. Thus the author holds it is necessary for further study from this perspective.In the light of real situation in college English learning that teachers attach more importance to cognition while neglecting affective factors and learners make much effort but gain little, this thesis carries out a study on college English memorization from the perspective of affect. It takes notice that some affective factors can be adjusted because of their dynamic characteristics. Yet at the same time, the dynamic characteristics make the result of researches difficult to be measured which increases the difficulty of the study of affect. So studying all the affective factors or taking all the affective variables into consideration seems impractical and impossible. For these reasons, I choose motivation and attitude as the core of investigation.Methods used in this thesis contain qualitative and quantitative study. After reviewing the achievements and weaknesses of former researches, we carry out an empirical survey aiming at the research information. Through analysis of the survey result, the author tries to apply it into teaching practiceThe study shows that memorization plays a significant role in college English learning. However, the current state of memorization in non-English majors'learning is far from satisfaction. There exist some problems, such as lopsided exam-orientation, lack of intrinsic motivation, dullness in memory strategy. College English memorization, as a complex learning process, is greatly influenced by learners'affect. Chinese college English learners are motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In Chinese learning context, non-English majors are mostly motivated by the former one. Although some learners can receive more direct result in some way, their holistic development is hard to reach. The result also shows that students motivated by intrinsic motivations are more likely to have positive attitude towards college English memorization. Therefore, foreign language teachers need concern the learners'affect, as well as their cognition factors, cultivate the learners'motivation, especially the intrinsic motivation, arouse their positive attitudes and adopt optimal memory strategy, so that they can promote the memorization efficiency and the learners'holistic developments.