Effect Of The Learner's Affective Factors

In the recent decades, as the focus of FLT is shifted from "the teacher-oriented" to "the student-oriented", more and more attention has been directed to the study of the learner's IDs and his affective factors in particular. Researches at home and abroad show that the learner's affective factors have a certain bearing on his English learning achievement (ELA), and, in some cases, even determine it success or failure. However, many teachers fail to attach sufficient importance to the learner's affective factors in their practical teaching of English.This paper attempts to make an investigation and analysis of the relationship between the learner's affective factors and the achievement of English language learning (ELL) from the perspective of educational psychology and humanistic teaching notion.The problems investigated in this study include the learners' affective states in learning English, their opinions about the English learning environment and the teacher's attitudes, the teacher's concern about the learners' affective factors, and the communication between the teacher and the learners, etc.Findings from the data analysis show that affective factors do have certain effects on learner's ELA. 7 variables in learner's affects are found to account for the disparity in the learner's ELA. Among them, six variables are identified as powerful predicators of the learner's ELA: the learner's interest, attitude, motivation, anxiety, self-esteem, and empathy. Introversion and extroversion produce little influence on the learner's ELA, except that the extroverted may do better than the introverted in oral English. In addition, there are 5 other variables found that have effects on the learner's affective states. They are learning environment, teacher's teaching method, teacher's concern for learner's affects, teacher's attitude towards and tolerance of learner's errors and the teacher's communication with the learner. The variable of affective factors is only one of the variables that have effects on the learner's ELA. The learner's ELA is the outcome of the interplay of affective factors and other factors.