The Effects Of English Teachers' Psychological Suggestion On Less Advanced Students In Junior High Schools

The problem about the less advanced students is a major issue which is a long-term hassle to our teaching quality,as well as the serious challenges faced by the educators who comprehensively implement quality education and innovation.It can not be avoided,and it is necessary to solve this problem in the concept of educational innovation.Although in recent years,more and more teachers in China begin to pay attention to the impact on the students' English learning which is caused by psychological hints,the study is still in its infancy stage.What they achieved is only in some endeavors,which lacks the solid theoretical foundation.Moreover,few less advanced students are regarded as the subjects of the study.This thesis proposes Teachers' Psychological Suggestion to transform the less advanced students' English learning.Teachers' Psychological Suggestion refers to a method that the less advanced students receive some kinds of information through the teachers' actions including spoken and non-spoken suggestion imperceptibly,which impacts them to change their study attitudes,helps them to dispel psychological obstacles to study.The final goal of this method is to help to promote the English linguistic competence by means of improving English learning interest,lowering the anxiety degree,enhancing the learning initiative and the self-confidence.It emphasizes the organic combination of suggestion before class,suggestion in class and suggestion after class,that is to say,it is to give the less advanced students hints uninterruptedly.The less advanced students in Grade Eight were the subjects in this study.We chose 356 less advanced students in English learning who studied in Yiyang No.1 Middle School,No.1 Middle School of Yiyang Heshan District and Yiyang Gaoping Yinfeng Middle School and used questionnaires,interviews and records to investigate and analyze their present situation in English learning.The investigation included four aspects:1) learning interest;2) anxiety degree;3) learning initiative(open the mouth to speak English);4) self-confidence.Data was collected through a questionnaire.The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the results showed that the less advanced students in Grade Eight had the following problems:1) To be lowly interested in English,some even hate it.Meanwhile, most of the less advanced students do not like their English teacher;2) To have a high anxiety degree in the learning process;3) To have weak learning initiative,not to like communicating with others in English or speaking English in class;4) To have lower confidence in English learning.Based on human suggestibility,Pygmalion Effect,Rogers' therapy theory,affective filter hypothesis and humanistic approaches,the author proposes Teachers' Psychological Suggestion according to the analysis of the present situation of the less advanced students' English learning.In the process of teaching,the basic principles of Teachers' Psychological Suggestion should be followed:1) Reciprocity Principle,2) Equality Principle,3) Acceptability Principle.The author took a one year's experiment in Yiyang Gaoping Yinfeng Middle School where 40 less advanced students were chosen to be the subjects who were divided into experimental group and control group,and applied pre-class techniques(clothing suggestion,moods suggestion), during-class techniques(language suggestion,expression suggestion, vision suggestion),post-class techniques(action suggestion,speech suggestion).At the end of the experiment,the questionnaire,the interview and an examination were taken,through the analyses of which it was found that most of the less advanced students were interested in English and also loved their English teacher.At the same time,in the learning process the anxiety degree had been reduced,their learning initiative had been strengthened,and the self-confidence had been improved.Specially, there was one less advanced students who had been translated into gifted students in the experimental goup.Teachers' Psychological Suggestion has the characteristic that the method is easy to operate.The study of this method provides a new angle of view for the study of junior English teaching.It helps the teacher to understand the students from the psychological angle.On the basis that internal cause is the key factor to affect the results,the teachers apply their psychological suggestion to exert a subtle influence on the less advanced students' internal cause in order to achieve the objective of improving English linguistic competence.At the same time,the characteristic that is easy to operate decides that the method has its potential replication,which has a strong theoretical and practical significance.