Emotion Leading Within Young Learners English Teaching

Young learners English teaching has become an inevitable trend in the fast-globalizing current China. Though at present there is not complete agreement on the best age for English learning, Second Language Acquisition theories designate that pre-school age is an important period for language learning. Some language training centers, kindergartens and primary schools have set up English courses for young learners, but enthusiasm can not necessarily lead to ideal results. The affective relationship between teachers and learners can not be underrated in young learners English teaching. Emotion leading at this stage involves a lot of things such as knowledge cognition, interests developing, teaching target and character fostering. The opposition and unity among these factors force teachers to center the arrangement of teaching materials, the organization of English teaching and the evaluation of the whole teaching process closely round emotion leading.For young learners who are short of proper knowledge structures, the contents of textbooks should match their particular mental characteristics and development. Teachers should make efforts to stimulate learners' positive emotions, such as self-respect, confidence, empathy, motivation, joy and amazement during English teaching.A survey by the author of this thesis of some of the present young learners English textbooks and training programs in China indicates that most of these English training programs suit young learners' cognitive level and mental characteristics. The textbooks have mostly included lively, light-hearted and interesting contents which are close to young learners' lives. These programs have generally been constructed by the principle of helping young learners develop their thinking ability and improve their qualities through participation and experience in language learning process. Disney's Magic English and Cambridge Young Learners English are two representatives of these programs. In order to verify the positive effects of emotion leading in young learners English teaching, the author of this thesis carried out an experiment with the two programs in comparison and contrast. The date collected from the experiment indicate that English teaching involving effective emotion leading (as is represented by Disney's Magic English teaching) has significantly higher positive influence than English teachinginvolving mostly cognition but little emotion leading (as is represented by Cambridge Young learners English teaching) on knowledge cognition and development of positive affects.Based on the survey and the results of the experiment, the author of this thesis points out some weaknesses in the present English training programs for young learners and proposes that young learners English teaching should include a long-term goal, that is, to help learners improve their comprehensive language competence on the bases of language skills, language knowledge, affective factors, language learning strategies and cultural awareness. He also recommends that particular short-term goals be set for the different stages of the language learning process. At the primary stage, listening and speaking are emphasized, based on which reading and writing are also cultivated;at the advanced stage, reading is stressed, based on which listening, speaking and writing are enhanced. Lastly, the author of this thesis calls for reforms in the evaluation system, holding that end evaluation should be combined with process evaluation, and that both process and end result should be paid attention to.