An Action Research On Pupils' Affective Factors And Oral English Ability

With the development of technology and social progress, English is becoming more and more important. Learning English is not only a language acquisition process, but also an affective process. Learners'affective factors play a vital part for their success or failure of English learning. In 2001, the Ministry of Education regulated that English should be a required course for primary schools in cities and counties all over the country. One of the targets of the course is concerning pupils'emotional attitude.Primary school is the beginning and basic stage to learn English, as well as the crucial period in which pupils can develop good listening and speaking habits. It will influence pupils'future learning. Pupils have strong curiosity and super capacity of imitating as well as good memory. But they also have some disadvantages in learning English such as with the growth of grade, their interest can't maintain, they are timid and afraid of making mistakes, they have no courage or strong will to overcome difficulties and so on. The whole target of New English Curriculum Standard is to cultivate students'comprehensive use of language. It requires that teachers should, according to pupils'psychological and physical characteristics and development demands, inspire and cultivate pupils learning interest, build up their self-confidence, make them master certain English knowledge and skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, because of the influence of our country's examination system and the traditional teaching methods, among the four skills, speaking has largely been neglected and is considered as the most difficult one to teach.This thesis concerns about pupils'poor oral English ability. The author takes the Grade Six pupils in a village primary school of Anci District in Langfang, Hebei Province as the subject and uses action research, implements twelve weeks'action plan and collects data through questionnaire, interview, classroom observation, oral tests and pupils'diaries to explore the relationship of anxiety, motivation and personality which are most discussed affective factors and oral English oral ability.This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introductory part which includes the background of the study, the purposes and significance of the study and the organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 is made up of three parts. The first part mainly explains the definition, the elements of affect and the studies of affect in the west and in China. The definition of oral ability, characteristics about oral English and the standards of oral ability are in the second part. The third part introduces the studies of affective factors in oral English learning and teaching home and abroad. Chapter 3 is made up of two parts. The first part is a general introduction to action research. The second part is about how the author conducted a 12-week action research. Data description and analysis are also described in this chapter. Chapter 4 provides suggestions for affective strategies in oral English class. Chapter 5 is the conclusion part which points out what the author has learned through the action research, and the major findings. The limitation of the study and recommendations for future research are also put forward.