The Application Of Affective Factors To English Teaching In Secondary Vocational School

The important goal of the current education is to facilitate the learners'whole development. In recent years,researchers and teachers have emphasized the importance of affective factors in learners'whole development and the relation between affect and cognition. In English New Curriculum Standards (2001) promulgated by the Ministry of Education, affective factors are required as an important part of learning,and as one of the most significant teaching contents and teaching goals. So the teachers should integrate affective factors into language teaching to meet the requirement of quality-oriented education and students'all-around development.Based on the theories of educational psychology and methodology of foreign language teaching, the present study aims to show that attention to affect in English classroom teaching and employing proper instructional strategies are conducive to students'positive and healthy affective growth and a more holistic development. Emotional factors relate closely to learning foreign languages. At present, most secondary vocational school students have rather serious emotional obstacles in learning English, positive emotional factors can facilitate learning and using foreign languages while negative ones may obstruct it. Therefore, teachers should pay more attention to the emotional factors in English teaching class and apply the strategies that utilize the emotional factors for teaching English, so as to help students overcome the emotional obstacles and facilitate English teaching and learning.The thesis recollects the history of the concept about affective education and reviews the relevant studies from both at home and abroad. The thesis summarizes the theories about the emotional factors and relevant strategies regarding teaching English as foreign language or the second language. With the support of the concept, characteristics and functions of affect, the author analyzes the affective factors as anxiety, inhibition, motivation, self-esteem and empathy, which influence English teaching, there is a statement of connotation and principles in English affective teaching.Integrated closely with the vocational school English teaching experience and based on the theory study of affective and related factors, the writer of this paper conducted a three-month experimental research on affective teaching by means of questionnaires and operable teaching methods with a view to studying systematically the affective factors and relevant strategies in English teaching class in secondary vocational schools. The thesis reaches the conclusion that emotional education in class can optimize the teaching process. Utilizing the positive effects arising from the affective factors can improve the students'learning attitude, can arouse students'self-confidence and thus promote the students'overall development.