The Influences Of The Whole Brain Teaching Strategies On Affective Changes Of College Non-English Majors

Human brain, universe, and life are regarded as the three world enigmas in science. It is one of the great challenges for human beings to make further research of human brain in the 21st century. As cognitive neuroscience, a new and interdisciplinary subject, came into being in 1990s, cognitive neuroscience laboratories began to be built in some famous universities in the world and more and more scientists tries their best to clarify the neutral system of human cognitive activities. During the past decade, a large number of research findings on brain and cognitive neuroscience have sprung up and had great effects on teaching. Educators and neuroscientists are now attempting to apply these research findings in classroom teaching. Some of them are trying to explore the whole brain teaching and change the only left-hemisphere-oriented teaching belief to the whole-brain-based teaching belief for helping students engaged in less threat, harmonious and enriched whole brain learning environment and improving learning efficiency. Therefore, teachers in China should try taking the new teaching belief into classroom teaching and exploring its effects.Since, in recent years, educators abroad have put forward some teaching strategies for the whole brain and applied them into second language classroom teaching, whereas in China, few educators use them into English teaching. Thus, it is very necessary and important to take the whole brain teaching strategies into English teaching and explore their effects on student English learning.For the purpose, the present study aims to explore the influences of WBTSI (the whole brain teaching strategy-based instruction) on affective changes of college non-English majors and even their learning behavior changes with the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis. Firstly, the researcher develops the questionnaire for student English learning motivational state and the questionnaire for whole brain teaching strategies used in college EFL class based on the review of the literature. The questionnaires are revised repetitively. Factor analysis and the internal consistency test are used for guaranteeing the reliability and validity.Then, the researcher implements the whole brain teaching strategy-based EFL instruction in the experimental group while the traditional teaching in the control group. The constructed motivational state questionnaire and the hemispheric preference questionnaire designed by Sousa were carried out both at the beginning and at the end of the research, but the strategy survey questionnaire is only used at the end of the research. For quantitative research, statistic software 17.0 is used in the analysis of the collected data. For qualitative research, the subjects'journals, interviews and classroom observation are utilized.The findings are as follows: 1. It is unexpectedly found that there is significant differences in the experimental group'hemispheric preferences between the pretest and posttest with WBTSI while no significant difference in the control group although the subjects'hemispheric preferences in the control group slightly change. Thus, it may be concluded that WBTSI can affect learners'hemispheric preference.Secondly, compared with the pretest, the subjects'intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and learning goals in the experimental group are all increased, but not significantly, meanwhile, their anxiety in language learning has decreased significantly indicating that they become less anxious after WBTSI. However, the subjects'intrinsic motivation in the control group has decreased significantly after a semester-study, meanwhile, they become more anxious. The results prove that the whole brain teaching strategy-based instruction is effective to students'affection to some extent.Thirdly, it can be concluded from the findings of the subjects'questionnaires, interviews and journals that WBTSI does influence and enhance their learning behaviors in class and after class and the students in the experimental group become more autonomous in English learning after a semester-study.Fourthly, correlation analysis between the whole brain teaching strategies and student English learning motivational state indicates that students'intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and their learning behaviors are significantly related to the frequency of the whole brain teaching strategy use in class respectively, thereby providing evidence that the teacher's teaching practice does matter.Finally, the qualitative research also displays that the cases are aware of the importance of WBTSI and try to use whole brain strategies in daily learning to help their less-developed side.