| "The Comprehensible Input Hypothesis " and "The Affective Filter Hypothesis " are the most important branches of the "Monitor Theory" declared by the famous American linguist Krashen in 1980s. Krashen suggested that when learners acquire a second language (L2) or a foreign language (FL), they need not only large quantity of input but also the input that is comprehensible. That is "i +1" Theory. As Krashen's perspective, "i" here refers to the student's current level of the language, while "i +1" means the input a bit beyond student's current level of the language. Only based on the comprehensible input can the acquisition take place. Krashen predicated that "i +1" input is the optimal model of the input.However, it is uncertain that students can master all the linguistic information that was transmitted only with the comprehensible input. Input must be affected by students' affective factors such as motivation, attitude, anxiety and self-confidence seem to be obstacles to the input. The greater the degree of the filter is, the less the message of the input will be absorbed by the students, and vice versa.But these two hypotheses elaborates the main situation in which how learners acquire L2 or FL in natural settings, however, it is still a controversy on how students learn English as their foreign language in the classroom environment. To what extent is the degree of "1" in "i +1" controlled can be testified the comprehensible input in middle school classroom teaching? Considering the complicated situation, to what degree do students' different affective factors affect the comprehensible input? The questions above will be the issues which the present study explores by large quantity of analysis of linguistic theories, questionnaire and tests in classroom teaching.In order to reveal the common laws and the reliability of the whole population, The present study takes Class (5), Senior Three (59) and Class (14) Senior one (56) as the random sampling subjects. These two classes are both common classes. The subjects in senior three are tested in three areas of English listening, cloze test and reading comprehension in the classroom teaching. The tests take the mean scores of English listening materials from 2003 National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), cloze test from 2004 NCEE and reading comprehension from 2003 NCEE of Beijing, spring as the parameters to be compared with the tested mean scores of materials from other three kind of current revision books in senior three. The findings of data calculated reveal the basic definition of the boundary line and range for materials comprehensibly input in English listening, cloze test and readingcomprehension. Meanwhile, on the basis of definition for the comprehensible input, some interviews are carried out for two kinds of affective factors—motivation and self-confidence in English learning in the subjects of the two grades, and according to "Language Learners Factors Questionnaire" by Wen Quifang (2002), a "Language Learners Affective Factors Questionnaire" was made, and was pre tested and post tested separately in the two grades. In senior one, the data from pre and post tests are related compared and analyzed separately with the mean scores of marks from the midterm English examinations of first semester and the second semester; in senior three, the pre-tested and post-tested data from the questionnaire are relatively compared and analyzed separately with the mean score of marks from the first and the third diagnostic English examination of NCEE, and the findings of the research in the two grades are integrated and resulted the degree to which motivation and self-confidence influence the English learning proficiency, and the further calculation reveals the precise degree to which the affective factors influence the English learning proficiency of comprehensible input, that is if the degree of affective factors increases 1%, the degree of English learning proficiency for comprehensible input will increase 5% (except "anxiety").By the across analysis of single cases, the findings of the present study also proved that the portion of motivation and self-confidence are high in higher English-scored single cases, which are nearly the same; but the portion of motivation and self-confidence for the lower English scored cases are lower, between which the portion of motivation is lower than self-confidence. That's to say that for the lower English scored cases, they are lack of dynamic of learning English although they have strong self-confidence. So they can't achieve greatly in English learning proficiency. Meanwhile, the present study finds that if the degree of students' affective factors are fostered to 100%, 91.5% of English learning information is taken into students' internal system in general, and 90%-95% in difference by experiment and analysis of cases.
|
PDF Full Text Request