| In the last few decades, with the focus of English as a foreign language teaching ( EFLT ) shifted from the teacher-orientation to the student-orientation, more and more attention has been directed to the study of learners' affective factors in particular. Researches at home and abroad show that a learner's affective factors have a certain bearing on his or her English learning achievements (ELA), and, in some cases, even determine the success or failure. However, we have noticed that many English teachers fail to attach sufficient importance to affective factors of EFL learners in their practical English teaching.In the process of reading related literature and data at home and abroad, though the author found plenty of papers on learning strategies, anxiety, and attribution etc. in English study, most of them are concerning college students, and few papers are on senior high school students' general psychological status (PS) in English learning at present. The author thinks that to raise students' effect of English learning, in addition to valuing teaching material construction, classroom teaching etc., teachers of English must learn about various psychological problems of their students in their English learning. Thus, in the present empirical study, an investigation was intended mainly to reveal students' general PS in their English learning in high schools, which will greatly help students to build up healthy psychological status to learn English well.In the study, based on educational psychology and humanistic education notion, the author designed 8 questionnaires with 110 items, which are respectively about students':①attitudes towards English study,②relationship with teachers and classmates,③attitudes towards examinations,④classroom performance,⑤attitudes towards difficulties in English study,⑥self-confidence in English study,⑦family environment, and⑧motivation of English study. 500 students were chosen as the subjects from a key high school and a general school, which are both in the city where the author works. With the investigation and some analyses, we hope to find out①the students' general PS in their English learning ,②whether PS differences in English learning exist between the students from the key high school and the general high school,③whether PS differences in English learning exist between girls and boys,④the correlation students' PS between in their English learning and ELA,⑤the main affective factors influencing students' PS in their English learning and their ELA, and what psychological problems should be solved in order to improve students' PS in their English learning and their English learning achievements etc.Analyzing the survey data with the help of SPSS demonstrates that①High school students' psychological distribution in their Englishlearning is normal.②Students from the countryside have poorer PS than those from citydo, and hometown-remaining children have obvious psychologicalproblems in their English learning.③The PS in their English learning of the students from the key high school is better than that from the general high school, but little difference is found in the motivation of English learning. (7.00±2.54 to 6.88±1.76).④Girl students share better PS than boy students.⑤A positive correlation exists between ELA and students' PS. ⑥Based on the stepwise regression analyses, independent variables of classroom performance, relationship with teachers and classmates, self-confidence in English learning are the major factors influencing students' ELA (P<.001)⑦Most of the students expect high quality teachers and harmonious family environment.In our study, we also tried to find out the causes of the problems and put forward some theoretically possible solutions to these problems.This study is intended to draw more attention to the students' PS in their English learning, and to help us English teachers have a better understanding of students' PS, so that we may make some humble contribution to English language education in high schools. |
