Cooperative Learning: Affective Factors And The Teaching Of College English In China

Affective factors in education gained importance with the development of humanistic psychology in the 1960s. In the foreign language learning and teaching (FLL & T) research field, scholars have discovered that affect plays a significant role in foreign language learning and teaching (Krashen, 1982; Wang, 2001). The importance of affect in FLL & T is embodied at two different levels. At the surface level, affective factors determine the success or failure in learning and teaching. At the deep level, affect is an essential domain of whole-person development parallel to cognition. In this sense, affect is not simply an issue of language learning and teaching, nor an issue of education, but an issue of the development of human beings. Therefore, it is indispensable to pay attention to affect as well as to cognition in FLT. Attention to affect can improve language learning and teaching, in turn, the teaching can contribute in a very significant way to educating students' affectively. Unfortunately, the present teaching of College English has largely neglected the affective domain. The "non-affective" teaching results in students' learning-weariness and dropping out of class even failure in learning English.Thus, this dissertation proposes to implement Cooperative Learning (CL), which isadvocated by American educationists R. E Slavin, D. W. Johnson and R. T. Johnson, N. Davision and Isreali educationists Y. Sharan and S. Sharan, Z. R. Mevarech, etc., in College English teaching. CL refers to a system of teaching and learning strategies which take small groups as the basic form of the classroom structure, requiring interaction among heterogeneous group members engaged in tasks in which all members have both something to contribute to and learn from the other members. CL gains broad acceptance in language classroom principally because of its contributions to improving the overall climate of the classroom in which learners' psychological needs are met and its potentials for providing supportive and expanded opportunities for learners to use the language. Meanwhile, in a deep sense, CL incorporates the balanced goal of developing learners affectively, cognitively and psychomotorly to foreign language teaching, therefore, it facilitates the holistic development of a person. This is in accordance with the quality education that is going on in our country. The potentials arising from the implementation of CL are: the development of students' communicative competence;-the development of students' higher order thinking and metacognitive competence; and the development of students' affective competence, learner autonomy, interpersonal competence as well as the awareness of cooperation.This dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter One briefly introduces the background of foreign language learning and teaching research, the present state of College English teaching in China and the significance of this research.Chapter Two discusses the clarification of the term "affect" and the important role affect plays in FLL & T. Affect refers to the learner's feelings, emotions and attitudes in the process of learning. It includes the learner's emotional reactions in learning, emotional preconditions the learner brings to learning context and emotional expectancy education strives for. The importance of affect is justified from the perspectives of linguistics, second language acquisition and psychology. Language has affective components (or functions). Low affective filter is crucial to learners' successful learning. Individual differences variables, macro-social milieu and micro classroom milieu play their own roles in second language learning. Individuals' thoughts, feelings, and emotions should be put at the forefront of all human development. Thus, learning should be, in essence, both humanistic and constructivist. Language teaching should bringlearners' initiative into play, encouraging them to construct the meaning and understanding by themselves instead of by indoctrination. These assumptions serve as a...