The Impact Of Affective Teaching On College English Learning

Since 1990s, there are lots of new features and trends in English language education. The target of English language education is becoming increasingly completed and is paying more attention to the cultivation of students'affect in English language learning. As a crucial aspect and a core content of quality education, affective factors are also important elements in foreign language teaching and affective teaching has become a major issue about which the modern education concerns. In addition, under the influence of humanistic psychology and constructivism theory, cultivating students'learning ability has become a consensus of many educators and researchers in education both at home and abroad. For these reasons, in order to further improve the quality of college English teaching, emphasis must be laid on the research of students'affect, learning ability and the relationship between them while studying the language itself.Although educators and researchers have noticed the significant role of affect and learning ability in English learning, there isn't much research on combination of these two aspects. Therefore, this paper attempts to discuss the effect of affective teaching on college English learning. In both theory and practice, it probes into the aspects of positive and negative affective factors in college English teaching, of how to make good use of these affective factors and of how to promote English learning through affective teaching. Based on Rogers'and Maslow'Humanistic views, Piaget's and Bruner's Constructive views and Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, this study carries out a research which focuses on 111 non-English majors in the 09 grade of Harbin Institute Technology by means of the quantitative analysis. It discusses affective factors, affective teaching and college English leaning through Questionnaires, English Test (College English Test-Band Six of December, 2009) and test scores'comparison with the help of SPSS statistic analysis. All the questionnaires were designed from the combination of American psychologists', e.g., Ely's, researches with Horwitz's FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scales), Gardener's AMTB (Attitude/Motivation Test Battery), and Deci & Ryan's study on the relationship between learning and motivation. A conclusion has been drawn that affective teaching plays a positive role in promoting college English learning by making use of affective teaching to handle the affective factors properly. In addition, based on the above analyses, the author proposes some relevant suggestions of how to cultivate students'learning ability in college English teaching in China.As is shown in the study, college English affective teaching can change the students'attitudes not only toward themselves but also toward their classmates and teachers. Meanwhile, it is also better for improving students'self-awareness, developing their learning potential and finally improving students'English learning successfully. Apparently, college English learning mentioned in this paper relates closely to the three significantly overlapping and interdependent roles which college English teachers usually play in affective teaching, namely, democratic promoters, fosters of personal growth and facilitators. Therefore, in order to cultivate students'English learning ability, it is imperative for college English teachers to adopt affective teaching and maximize its advantages to cultivate the students'ability to learn English.