Affect And Affective Strategies Applied In The Foreign Language Teaching

Affective factors and cognitive factors are two important parts of English learning. However, English teaching in recent years has taken into special consideration the necessity of knowledge and intelligence and comparatively ignored the development of affection. It may greatly reduce students' English learning capacity and limit the whole development of students.Since the 1970's, humanistic language-teaching theory has begun to focus its attention on affect and personality in language teaching. In Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, he states that affective factors play a very important role in second language acquisition. Piaget emphasizes the process of cognitive construction in the process of affective construction in his theory of affective development. People's attention is gradually attracted to the affect of human beings. Since the issue of the New Course Criteria in China, Chinese educators have begun to pay more attention to the affective factors of their students. It requires English teachers to be more concerned with the development of their students' affections.This paper will discuss the definition and the importance of affection and some main affective factors, and illustrate some implications of how to implement practical affective activities. We should combine cognition and affect in mind and use them appropriately so as to improve the teaching quality and promote all-around development of the students.