The Effects Of The Teacher's Classroom Behavior On Students' Affect And Learning Achievements

A teacher's classroom behavior includes mainly verbal behavior and nonverbal behavior. Both of them play an important part in the process of organizing the classroom teaching and learners' language learning. Thus, we can't isolate them from each other.The present study is to provide the real situation of the teacher's verbal and nonverbal behavior in the Middle School English Classroom to test the hypothesis that teachers' classroom behavior modification would help to create the students' positive affect and consequently improve their English achievements.The investigation was carried out in the middle school classroom. It consisted of two parts. Firstly, four teachers' classroom verbal behavior was investigated from the following four aspects: the amount of teacher talk, asking questions, teacher speech modifications in the classroom, teacher talk as feedback. Statistical analysis was given to the classroom-recording materials and some data from questionnaires. We got the real situation of the teachers' classroom verbal behavior, which was so worrying. Having been provided with the feedback from the students and the investigation, the teachers developed a variety of strategies to modify their classroom verbal behavior. Secondly, two teachers were invited to give lessons three times during two months. Videotaping and two questionnaires were done. Having been given the feedback based on the Videotaping and the students' evaluation of their teachers' classroom nonverbal behavior, teachers became aware of their nonverbal behavior and later modified their behaviors. Though it was not easy, the two teachers were successful in improving their teaching through modification of their behavior. They worked more enthusiastically, which stimulated in turn the students, who became more and more interested in English. Hence, students developed positive attitude toward themselves,the teacher, and the content being taught.Two months later after finishing the two parts of the experiment, students' affect about English learning and their achievements were both improved. Thus, the teachers' classroom behavior modification would help to create the students' positive affect and consequently improve their English achievements.