A Study On Affective Factors In Foreign Language Learning Of Higher Vocational College Students

In the previous education, affect was placed in a less important position than cognition. Researchers and educators used to focus on the cultivation of cognitive aptitude and neglect the influence of affect in education, which led to students' "emotional illiteracy". With the growth of humanistic psychology, affective factors in language learning gained more and more importance. Unfortunately, affective variables such as anxiety and motivation have not been attached importance to in the foreign language teaching in higher vocational colleges. In fact, there is a trend which is instrument-oriented and lack of humanistic care in teaching.After the review of affective factors in foreign language learning the author mainly makes a close theoretical and empirical research into the two affectivevariable——anxiety and motivation. Through the research, the author reveals someemotional problems about anxiety and motivation in foreign language learning, analyzes the causes of the problems and then proposes some teaching strategies which can facilitate cultivating students' positive emotions and improve the efficiency of language learning.The main findings of this investigation are as follows: higher vocational college students do have anxiety in foreign language classroom, among which the communication apprehension is the most serious; the anxiety of unsuccessful foreign language learners is significantly higher than that of the successful learners; the anxiety of girl students is significantly higher than that of boy students; the anxiety of English majors is higher than that of non-English majors; The foreign language learning motivation of higher vocational college students shows a tendency of diversity; Instrument-oriented motivation is the mainstream motivation; cultural interest motivation has the most great influence on their foreign language learning; The motivation for grades/exam has significantly negative correlations with students' effort in foreign language learning. The degree of foreign language anxiety is a little negatively correlated with students' effort in their learning process.Based on the research findings, the author draws a conclusion: Generally, severe anxiety pervasively obstructs the learning process; There is some possibility of facilitating anxiety; it proves the fact that the relationship between anxiety and the efficiency of foreign language learning is not direct; the students in higher vocational school have multi-motivations of foreign language learning; cultural interest motivation is expected to be improved; grades/exam motivation is a kind of negative motivation; anxiety and motivation are a bit negatively correlated, both of which have an influence on the efficiency of foreign language learning. Combined with teaching practice in the classroom, some suggestions are proposed in this thesis to reduce the foreign language classroom anxiety and activate learners' motivation.Both anxiety and motivation do affect the foreign language learning process. Meanwhile, we cannot neglect the fact that they are only a part of affective factors in language learning. Besides, solving the emotional problems doesn't mean solving all the problems in foreign language learning. Therefore, as foreign language teachers , we should pay attention to the two aspects : both affect and cognition, so as to implement the quality-oriented education and develop a large number of advanced practical talents with good quality and creativity.