A Study Of The Functions And Strategies Of Affective Teaching In Senior High School

English is one of the most important international languages and it plays a big part in theglobal exchange activities related to politics, economy, and cultures. With the globalization ofhuman activities and China’s opening to the outside world, more and more high-qualityEnglish talents are in great need. In the past decades, English teaching of our country hasmade great progress, but there still exists serious inadequacy. As a result of the long-termexam-oriented educational system and the traditional teaching thoughts, English teaching onlypays more attention to the cognitive factors and ignores the affective factors, which has a badeffect on English teaching efficiency. Quality education has been advocated for many years,but it hasn’t been carried out thoroughly. In senior high school, because of the pressure fromthe college entrance examinations, the phenomenon is becoming more and more serious.Teachers just give students some facts to remember and a sea of exercises to finish. Taught inthis way day after day, students will soon get tired physically and mentally. And worse more,some students will give up English. This kind of teaching also does harm to the developmentof students’imagination and creativity.The new English Curriculum Standard requests English teachers not only to improvestudents’knowledge and skills but also to pay more attention to students’positive affects andattitudes. Only in this way can students’ability of self-studying be developed and thusteachers can help students to be prepared for their further education and development. Theaffects and attitudes relating to English study mainly include interest, motivation,self-confidence, team spirit, patriotism, international perspective, and so on. These affectivefactors have a greater effect on senior students’English study, because in senior high schoolEnglish textbooks，the vocabulary has been enlarged and learning materials are more difficult.Therefore, keeping a positive attitude is the key to students’successful learning and teachers’effective teaching. Teachers should design affective strategies as well as cognitive strategiesin order to inspire students’interest in English cultures and help students keep motivation onstudy. Teachers should design some proper tests and activities so that students can experiencethe enjoyment from their progress and achievements to establish self-confidence and thestrong will to overcome difficulties. Teachers should organize students to study in the form ofgroups in order to cultivate students’team spirit, develop their creativity and improve theability to apply knowledge to practice. Through English study，teachers should teach studentsChinese traditional cultures to enhance the sense of patriotism. Also, teachers should guide students to learn about some excellent foreign cultures and philosophy to broaden theirinternational horizons. Although the new reform of curriculum standard has been carried outfor many years, affective goals are always ignored and aren’t put into practice throughteaching links. Educational psychology suggests that the teaching process includes two basicelements: the affective process and the cognitive process. Cognitive activities withoutaffective factors are just like water without a source. There’s no life in this kind of teaching.Positive affective factors can stimulate intelligence, provide power, adjust, strengthen andtransfer emotions.In the information era and life-long study society, the research on the connection ofcognitive teaching and affective teaching is becoming one of the main trends on the worldscale. Affective teaching is the way to correct the wrong teaching method that only focuses onthe cognitive teaching ignoring affective teaching. It provides a good cure for the Englishteaching tradition. Overseas, the thought of affective teaching has a long history, but theprogress of the research on affective teaching is slow and is just at it’s early stage. There is agreat gap between theory and practice. In China, the research on affective teaching fallsfarther behind. There is almost no research into the functions and strategies of affectiveteaching for different learning stages and specific subjects.This thesis tries to solve the universal problem that senior high school English teachingtraditionally centers on cognitive factors and ignores affective factors, resulting in lowteaching efficiency. This thesis is based on humanism teaching theory and constructionprinciple teaching theory. The author of the thesis referred to quantities of articles and data.On the basis of the author’s years of teaching practice, the characteristics of English as a mainsubject and senior students’psychological characteristics, this thesis focuses on the researchof the functions and strategies of affective teaching in senior high school.The first chapter of this thesis is about literature review. It introduces the former andcurrent research home and abroad. It also shows the aim of writing this thesis. The secondchapter presents the theory basis: humanism teaching theory and construction principleteaching theory. The third chapter is about the teaching experiment. The author of this thesiscarries out an experiment on her students. Questionnaires and test papers are given out to thestudents before and after the experiment. In the control class, the traditional teaching methodwhich pays much more attention to cognitive factors than affective factors is applied, while inthe experimental class, the affective teaching method is used which pays attention to affectivefactors as well as cognitive factors. According to the results of the pre-experimentquestionnaire and test, some affective teaching strategies are adopted. The strategies are as follows: a. creating affection portfolios. On the basis of understanding students’affectivesituations, the teacher can design affective teaching strategies for the whole class andindividual students. b. Creating a harmonious friendship between the teacher and studentswith affection. Establish a new democratic and harmonious relationship between the teacherand students. c. Making teaching content affective. Make full use of the contents which arerich in emotions, and add emotions to the contents which are lacking in emotions. d. Makingteaching organization affective. Organize the students to study in groups to strengthen theinteraction and cooperation between the teacher and students. e. Evaluating students’performance with affection. Change the traditional evaluation system for a diversifiedevaluation mode. The experiment lasts for one term. In chapter four, the author analyzes thedata collected and compares them with the ones collected before the experiment. The dataanalysis shows that affective teaching is powerful and helpful, and the strategies aresuccessful. Affective teaching helps students develop positive affective factors, improveacademic performance and all-around qualities. Chapter five is implications and suggestions.The thesis bridges affective teaching theory with teaching practice. In the experiment,the author applies affective strategies to teaching content, organization, evaluation and therelationship between the teacher and students. The author strives to create a practical affectiveteaching mode and to prove it in teaching practice. Meanwhile the functions of affectiveteaching are explored and the theory of affective teaching is enriched and improved. Theauthor hopes the thesis contributes to the further research of affective teaching in senior highschool, promotes students overall development and thus speeds up the quality education.