A Research On Affective Factors In Junior High School Students' English Learning

In recent years, more and more people have shown their concern for students' all-round development.Consequently, affective teaching has become one of the main tasks in our daily teaching, and moreattention has been paid to the influence of affective factors to language learning In the New EnglishCurriculum Standards (NECS) issued by the Ministry of Education in2001, affective factors are describedas the most important and direct factors that influence students' English learning. The tasks of the teachersare not only to teach language knowledge and skills, but also to cultivate students' affective factors. So asEnglish language teachers, we should well know students' affective factors to help students set rightaffective attitude in order to improve students' English learning.This thesis is based on the modern theory of foreign language teaching, especially on the previousresearch findings about affective factors in second language acquisition. Learning motivation, includingintrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, is the main factor of affective factors. Motivation is the mostdeep-going factor to influence students' English learning. Intrinsic motivation refers to inner interest andmotion, which could make students more active to learn. Extrinsic motivation refers to forced externalstimuli. Affective factors also include learning attitude, anxiety degree, confidence and personality. Theabove factors above all relate to English teaching and influence teaching efficiency directly or indirectly.In view of the importance of affective factors to English teaching and learning, this thesis attempts tocenter on the following two questions:1. What affective factors do the higher-points learners have? What affective factors do thelower-points learners have? And what are the differences between them?2. In what way can teachers help the students in junior middle school to enhance the positive affectivefactors?This thesis took the middle school students' affective factors in No.12Middle School in Xinxiang, asits research object, investigating into the affective factors of high-points learners and low-points learners. Italso made a survey of the current situation of teachers' teaching methods in order to better affectiveteaching and learning. To ensure the reliability of the study, the author selected60students in the tracked class for bright students and60students in an ordinary-student class, the top-20and the last-20studentsfrom the tracked class for bright students and the ordinary-student class respectively in No.12MiddleSchool in Xinxiang to make a questionnaire survey.200questionnaires were collected and were regardedas valid. The data collected was then given a detailed analysis.By means of the analysis, the author found that most of the higher-points learners have obviousintrinsic learning motivation and extrinsic motivation, and they also have good learning attitude, and havecertain learning anxiety. So far as personality is concerned, most higher-points learners are moreself-confident, active and optimistic. Meanwhile, quite a lot of lower-points learners don't have obviousintrinsic motivation, lacking good learning attitude, and possess high degree anxiety in English learning.Most of them are lack of confidence in language learning, and are unwilling to communicate with others.Based on the author's research, this thesis offers some suggestions concerning the affective teaching andlearning for junior middle school English teachers and students.