A Social Constructivist Model For The Construction Of Affect In Senior English Teaching

Nowadays it has been realized that affective factors are as important as, if not more important than, cognitive factors. In the past, nevertheless, we concentrated on understanding the rational, cognitive functions of our mind thus far, while misusing or denying whatever falls within the realm of the emotions or the non-rational. One of the consequences of this situation is our current "emotional illiteracy". Scholars have discovered that affectivity plays a significant role in foreign language learning and teaching with the development of humanistic psychology since the 1960s. Since then, various theories and researches have been advanced and testified. Among them, Social Constructivism, put forward by Williams and Burden is a learning-and-teaching theory that emphasizes the collaborative nature of human learning in social contexts and the key role that social interaction plays in knowledge construction. In this model, knowledge is believed to be constructed by the individual himself instead of transmitting by others and such construction is the result of social interactions, taking place in the interactions with teachers, learners, tasks and contexts. Therefore, affective factors can influence students' attitudes towards interpersonal relations with others as well as his attitudes towards his own language study, such as his motivation, self-esteem, and anxiety and so on. The social constructivist model of the teaching-learning process can provide us with a new perspective on the study of affect in FLL.Learners'affective states may serve as an indicator for teachers to adjust the way of language teaching, and in turn effective language teaching can help students to develop their active and healthy affect. In the light of this, more researches have been made on affective aspects in FLL&FLT in China, but most of them are more theoretical and less practical. In addition, the empirical researches are insufficient, especially those with middle school students in the middle-sized city in China. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore how to construct senior middle school students'positive affect in FLL on the basis of Social Constructivist model.The thesis first analyses the current situation of English class in a middle school of a middle-sized city and then the subjects are divided into experiment class, who are taught with particularly more attention to the cultivation of affect and control class, who are taught in a traditional way. The experiment result shows that experiment class students are more positive in interpersonal relations and have better performance in study than students in control class. Instruments used in this thesis are questionnaire, interview and class observation, which can make the study creditable and valid.