A Survey And Reflection Of The Relationship Between Affective Objectives And English Teaching And Learning In Middle School

Affective attitudes have been made one of the English curriculum objectives for the first time in English Curriculum Standards, which clearly states that affective attitudes have an important influence on the development of students in the course of learning, and this can highlight the importance of humanistic concepts--- helping the learners attempt to achieve their development in an all-round way. Thus, to study affective problems, to show great concern to the development of affective attitude in the process of teaching have become an important part of English teaching reform nowadays.Researchers have become aware of the affect in language learning and it is of long standing. Early in the 1950s, a group of American educationists and psychologists put forward the theories of the classification of educational objectives, which can be divided into three domains: cognitive domain, affective domain and psychomotor domain. These theories have established the status of affective education in the educational theories and are widely accepted by the educationists in the world. In the 1960s, with the development of humanistic psychology, affective factors are considered as more important elements in education. And as a result, some theories and viewpoints about affective objectives were put forward by the humanistic psychologists such as Erikson, Maslow, Rogers, and all of these showed great enlightenment to education and language teaching. Language teaching methods appeared one after another in the history of English teaching, such as Silent Way, Suggestopedia, Community Language Learning, etc. They have laid stress on the affective factors in language learning. In China, many researchers have studied the functions of affect in learning and have proposed the teaching mode of"Enjoyable education"and"successful education". What the researches have presented emphasizes that affect can improve language teaching, and in turn effective language teaching can help students to develop their active and healthy affect.According to the relative theories, this thesis is aimed to learn about the implement of affective objectives in class through the questionnaire in ordinary high school and the interviews with teachers and students. The result of the study shows that teachers become aware of affect in teaching and attach importance to it. In language teaching, the interactive and effective communication between teachers and students can promote the students'English learning. What the students need is the input of teacher's affect in teaching. Thus, in this situation, a harmonious and relaxed learning atmosphere can be formed. In contrast to the traditional teaching model, the phenomenon of"emphasizing cognition of knowledge and ignoring affective education"is being changed a little. But there are still some shortcomings in implementing affective objectives, for example, there is less guidance in theory about affective objectives for teachers. Thus, it is not easy for teachers to carry out the implement of affective objectives in teaching thoroughly. In most cases, there still exists a kind of ignoring affect due to the limit of the evaluation system for teaching and learning, so that the phenomenon of"emphasizing cognition of knowledge and ignoring affective education"will appear sometimes. Therefore, teachers should give attention to the existing problems and try to get them improved. From the study, some aspects should be covered in teaching. First, classroom teaching should be accorded with different students and each student's mental needs should be concerned about as well. Second, teacher's implication of affective objective should be enhanced. In reality, teachers easily care less about the classroom environment and students'affective factors, because the pressure and burden on them make them have less energy to cover the affective objective in teaching. Third, classroom environment should be improved to help interact with students better.With the limit of time, energy and condition, the study just makes a survey of affective objectives within a grade of a school. The method used in the study may not cover all aspects of affect. All of these may influence the scope and depth of the study.The present thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter I introduces briefly the background, the significance and scope of the research on affective objectives in English teaching. Chapter II offers the literature of the affective objectives and states affective factors, former studies at home and abroad. Chapter III and Chapter IV are the presentation of analysis and results of the survey. Chapter V serves as the conclusion of the study.