A Research On Junior Middle School Students’ Affective Engagement With English Learning

Emotional attitude is one of the curriculum goals of the Compulsory Education English Curriculum Standard(2011 Edition).Therefore,this study aims to investigate the current situation of junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning and find out the problems and reasons for problems in it,and then propose some targeted suggestions in order to help achieve curriculum aims and effective learning in English.The present study considers Guo Jidong’s affective engagement with English learning questionnaire which includes six dimensions English study value,interest and confidence,belongings to school,satisfaction with school and identification with the English teachers,and personal interviews as research instruments.It collects data from 256 junior middle school students in Longsheng No.1 Middle School,Beiliu city,Guangxi Autonomous Region to investigate their current situation of affective engagement with English learning.The present study intends to solve the three questions: 1)What is the overall situation of the surveyed junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning? 2)Are there any significant differences between senior and junior grades and in genders in the surveyed junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning? If yes,what are the differences? 3)What are the influencing factors in the surveyed junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning?The research findings show that 1)The surveyed junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning is at a relatively high level;Students’ English learning interest and confidence and satisfaction with school are at the intermediate level while their English learning value,belongings to school and identification with the English teachers are on a pretty high level.2)There exists significant differences between senior and junior grades and in genders.Senior students’ affective engagement with English learning is lower than junior students’;Male students’ affective engagement with English learning is lower than female students’.3)The factors that affect the affective engagement with English learning of junior middle school students in the surveyed schools include insufficient attention to English literature teaching,grammar knowledge difficulty level,strong test pressure,students’ low motivation to participate English class and school environment which can not meet students’ English learning needs.Based on the analysis and discussion of the above three questions,in order to help improve junior middle school students’ affective engagement with English learning,the present study puts forward several suggestions from three aspects of teachers,students and schools.1)Teachers need to use English movies and songs as curriculum resources to enhance students’ interest in learning English;Adopting deductive method to explain difficult grammatical knowledge to enhance students’ confidence in English learning;Understanding the changes in students’ affective engagement at different stages and improving senior students’ awareness of affective engagement control;Increasing the affective engagement experience of male students in English learning activities,and guiding male students to pay more affective engagement in learning activities.2)Students need to enhance their interest in English learning by reading English books and watching English movies;Summarizing unit grammar,and focusing on breakthroughs to enhance English learning confidence;Senior students need to carry out staged reflections on affective engagement with English learning;It is better for male students to actively participate English class.3)The school need to enrich English books in the school library and organize colourful English learning activities.However,as the study sample is small,there are still limitations in this research.The author hopes that future research can be further improved.