Exploring The Affective Factors Influencing Teaching Of English In Vocational Colleges

For a long time,in China many English educators have been over-emphasizing the cognitive knowledge in English language teaching(e.g.reading and writing), while neglecting the effects of affective factors.Teachers have been attaching too much importance to the knowledge-based value and practical value;however,the aims of teaching have been only confined to the mastery of knowledge(e.g.semantics, linguistics etc.).In the process of teaching,teachers tend to focus only on students' cognitive abilities while neglecting the arousal of their emotions and cultivation of their sentiments.Teachers simply think more about their professional skills and the teaching content and seldom observe students' affective experience.It seems that there is an invisible wall between teachers and students so that students cannot communicate their ideas and feelings with teachers;therefore it is hard to achieve the harmony between teaching and learning.It is well known that teaching involves interactions between teachers and students.As teachers,if we only focus on the improvement of personal teaching abilities and the selection of our teaching materials, lacking the consciousness of thinking from the students' perspective and seldom concerning about students' emotional experience,it will be difficult for us to achieve our teaching goal holistically.Much research shows that learners' affective factors play a great part in English learning,Therefore,owing to the influences and functions of the affective aspects in teaching and learning processes,students will surely achieve more effective learning. Meanwhile,paying more attention to learners' affective factors in education is also a way to inspire the whole students to bring mind and heart together in the classroom. So how to motivate vocational college learners' positive affective factors in English learning,how to promote deep development of teaching reform,and how to dig for the theoretical and practical value of the affective research have become a new field worth studying.The thesis,based on the related research both at home and abroad,guided by affective theories,psychology and educational psychological theories,and assisted with a questionnaire that investigated 215 learners' affective status in 4 vocational colleges in Qingdao area,discovers that affective problems are universal phenomena. and that the learners with high English level have little affective problems while those with low English level have serious affective problems.At the same time,it presents the possible counter-measures against vocational college learners' affective problems according to the actual affective status of vocational college learners' English learning.In this paper,the author,starting from the implication of affection and affective teaching as well as the relationship between affection and learning,analyzes the present status of affective factors of the vocational college students and puts forward some effective strategies to optimize teaching results.