A Study On Factors Influencing Middle School English Teachers' Affective Teaching

The English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011)highlights humanity of the English course and attaches great importance to affect in English learning.Meanwhile,developing learners' positive affect is closely related with the cultivation of learners' key competencies.Therefore,it is rather important for English teachers to take affective factors into consideration and have affective teaching in English class.However,some studies have found out that there still exists an imbalance between the promotion of affect in policy and the neglect in practice.This study investigated two aspects of middle school English teachers' perception of affective teaching,including their opinions of affective teaching in English class and factors influencing their application of affective teaching.A questionnaire and interviews were adopted as a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods.105 English teachers in middle schools in Hangzhou were surveyed.Among them,5 English teachers from Hangzhou Qingchun Middle School were interviewed.The entire process of the interviews was recorded.Excel(2007 version)and SPSS 16.0 were used for quantitative data analysis.Based on the analysis of the results of the questionnaire and interviews,the study found out that the middle school English teachers had incomprehensive perception of affective teaching and deficient knowledge about the theory and practice of affective teaching in class.Factors such as learners,teachers,students' families,and teaching materials were discovered to influence the application of affective teaching.The growth of the seniority was found to be a typical negative variable in middle school English teachers' application of affective teaching.Besides,the research found out that most teachers had positive attitudes towards their profession and the English language,which contributed to their attention and application of affective teaching in English class.Meanwhile,the research found out some practical problems which needed to be solved,like ineffective classroom management,unmeasurable evaluation methods and examination-oriented assessment system.Finally,some feasible measures were proposed to English teachers,including enhancing their self-development consciousness,participating in teacher learning communities,applying authentic assessment,redefining their identity,exploring vast teaching resources,organizing various activities and setting up teacher-family cooperation.