THE APPLICATION OF AFFECTIVE STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH CLASSROOM

杨冰冰

[Abstract]：This thesis sets out to appeal for extensive attention toward affective factors in English learning and teaching，and to explore ways to help learners eliminate negative affection and construct positive one in the process of learning and teaching.Affective factors can be various and complicated.Focusing on the indispensable aspects of English learning：learner，teacher，and classroom transaction，three basic principles of helping learners overcome negative affection and build up positive one are formulated.With the guidance of these principles，several strategies are put forward based on former language experts and practitioners achievements and the observation.

[Key words]：affective strategy negative affection positive affection English learning and teaching

Introduction

With the development of our country，English teaching has been putting in a crucial position.However，its low efficiency and unsatisfactory effect can hardly meet learners needs adequately.This problem undoubtedly owes a lot to negligence of learners affective state in the process of teaching and learning.Inadequate job in the affective domain has inevitably led to the present situation of inefficient and ineffective English learning and teaching.

In the view of this situation，this thesis aims at appealing for peoples attention towards affective factors in the English learning and teaching，seeks ways to remove learners affective barriers and constructs positive affection.The previous researches and findings in affective domain made by experts are reviewed in the chapter I，then the specific affective factors and affective problems are analyzed in chapter II，in chapter III and chapter IV principles and strategies are put forward，so as to promote the effect and efficiency of English learning as well as learners all-round development.

I. Review of Affective Study

1.1 The Definition of Affective Strategy

What is a strategy？ In the applied linguistic dictionary，a strategy is a tool，plan or method used in the language learning.

Affective strategy focuses on valuing the students all behaviors，such as feelings，emotions，attitudes，values，appreciations，aspiration，morals，character and encourages students to discuss their personal interest and experience.While cognitive strategy is related to the mind，to the results of perceiving，analyzing，synthesizing，evaluating and the like form of intellectual activities.Cognitive strategy focuses on providing information and explaining concepts.So when both affective strategy and cognitive strategy are employed，the learning process can be constructed on a firmer foundation.

1.2 Affective Domain in Education Psychology and Language Learning

Affection has long been concerned in the field of education and psychology since the half of the twentieth century.The research in English learning and teaching is also shifting more weight to learners affective domain.Certain study related to affection in the field of education，psychology and language learning would be generally reviewed to provide a theoretical basis and reference for further exploration.

As Bruner reminds us that if our education institutions do not deal with affective issues，which are the basis for healthy value affective systems，learners will turn to ‘anti-school and eventually results in serious social consequences.Neural scientist LeDoux sees emotions and cognition as partners so far as to say that “minds without emotions are not really minds at all”.

Carl R.Rogers and Abraham H.Maslow，as two most celebrated psychologists of the humanistic approach cast their eyes over the affective domain of human being and build their theories which transmit a lot instrumental messages to the field of education and English learning and teaching.

In Schuman acculturation Model（Schuman，1978） acculturation is determined by the degree of social and psychological distance between the learner and the target language culture.In the Accommodation Theory，Giles regards motivation as the primarily determiner of second language proficiency.Krashens Mintor Model which has obtained considerable prominence in second language acquisition，consists of five central hypotheses which deal with affective factors related to SLA.One of these five is the Affective Filter Hypothesis.

II. Affective Factors in English Learning

Affective factors in English learning and teaching can be classified as Arnold did from two perspectives：an English learner as an individual and an English learner as a participant in a socio-culture situation.

2.1 Individual Factors

The English learning process is strongly influenced by individual traits residing within the learner.The way we feel about ourselves and our capabilities can either facilitate or impede our learning，so the learner-instinct factors，eg.anxiety，motivation，self-esteem and inhibition will accordingly have a basically positive or negative influence on learning.

2.2 Relational Factors

Any activity of a person is related to other people.English learning，an activity involving transactional process is of course related to other people.English learning connects closely with those people who participate in the process with him or her.Thus，in any language learning or teaching situation，we are not only deal with the language，learners，learners cognition and affective factors，we must take the relational aspects such as empathy，classroom，transaction cross-cultural awareness into account.

III. Principles of Helping English Learners Overcome

Negative Affection and Develop Positive One

It is impossible to solve the learners affective problems in a so-called perfect approach.Thus，to find some guiding principles and feasible strategies which could be adopted in English classroom is more practical than to seek one perfect way.

In this chapter，effort will be engaged in the exploration of basic principles that could lead to English learners overcoming their negative affection and building up positive one.The exploration will be carried out respectively from the angle of learner，teacher and classroom transaction，because these three aspects are basic and indispensable in English learning and teaching process.

3.1 Helping English Learners Build a Healthy Self-concept

A healthy self-concept is crucial for learners.It helps them to keep the inner congruence and provide them rational explanation for experience.It also decides learners expectation for future success self-concept connects closely to self-esteem and other affective factors in English learning.Most ways of behaving adopted by people are consistent with the concept of self.When a student holds a negative self-concept on his English learning，and believed that all classmates regard him to be the left-behind，he will choose to let himself go and give up any efforts in English learning for the lack of confidence and motivation.Facing the same score，a student who thinks himself a top one in the class may be frustrated，on the contrary，a student who thinks himself average may feel satisfied and cheerful.When learners hold a negative self-concept，they will relate any experience with negative self-evaluation；when they hold a positive self-concept，any experience will be endowed with positive meaning.

3.2 Creating a Friendly and Active Classroom Climate

Creating a friendly and active classroom climate means providing learners a scene or environment for free learning.In a friendly and dynamic classroom，students motivations are much easier to be aroused and internalized.Creating a friendly and active classroom climate lays a great part in the teachers responsibility.So creating a supportive classroom climate is inconvertibly needed for improving English learners affection and their learning as well.

3.3 Being a Facilitator with Positive Affection

Now that learners are the center of learning，teacher should work as a helper，organizer or facilitator rather than a lecture.A facilitator possesses the qualities a teacher has，furthermore，he or she actively studies and pays attention to the psychological learning atmosphere and the inner process of learning with the aim of enabling the learners to take as much responsibility for their learning as they can.Generally speaking，being a facilitator includes four parts：being a human with positive affection，being in learners shoes，insisting on comprehensible input，and making proper feedback.Thee qualities of a facilitator make him or her not only able to adopt suitable teaching method，but also to know the learners learning psychology and process.The distance between the teacher and the learners is shorted and learning can be facilitated.

IV. Strategies to Help Learners Overcome Negative Affection and Develop Positive One in English Learning and Teaching

4.1 Teachers Expectation

In 1968 American psychologist Rosenthal.R and his partners conducted an experiment at Oak school on San Francisco .USA .It showed that students bestowed high expectation of learning performance by teacher demonstrated high spirit and more positive emotions in the learning and achieved average higher scores in the one-year later examination.Then growing evidence indicates that teach stimulating learners achievers expectation to students will bring amazing effects on their affection as well as learning.

Presenting learners expectation on learning is a feasible strategy for overcoming learners negative affection，setting up healthy self-concept and high self-esteem，achievement motivation to students accordingly urge them to develop toward the realization of expectation.As a matter of fact，the whole process of teachers expectation presentation and fulfillment is the process that teachers set up a goal of success and an image of healthy self-concept，then，encourage learners to attain the goal and refine the self.

4.2 Causal Attribution

According to causal attribution theory，how a learner thinks about success or failure affects his or her self-confidence motivation，learning performance and results.Researches indicate that students who attribute their poor learning outcome improperly are more apt to feel inferior and in lake of self-confidence which will then in turn influence their performance and outcome.On the country，if we can influence these learners attribution with planed steps，we may change their learning behavior，enhance their confidence and form positive attitude toward learning.

To those learners of low efficacy，the aim of training attribution is to change their belief ”I cant ” to “I can ” through helping them to attribute failure to inadequate effort rather than ability.As to the ways of helping learners to make correct causal attribution，they could be trained to carry out tasks individually or in groups，with the method of discussion，presentation，praising even punishment，etc in the process of reading，listening and exercising or other English activities.Repeated training leaves learners deeper impression and helps the formation of right causal attribution both consciously and unconsciously.

4.3 Teachers Talk Modification

Teachers talk modification is usually carried out through linguistic simplification（simpler syntax & simpler vocabulary，etc） and elaborate modification（repetition，paraphrasing，slower speech，etc）.Other ways as employing body language and paralanguage are also helpful for teachers to employ as supplement to teacher talk when they transfer comprehensible input.

Teachers talk modification covers the language adjustment from pronunciation，vocabulary to sentence pattern for the purpose of attaining the goal of real mutual negotiation and interaction between teacher and students.Furthermore，adjusting teachers talk may also mean decreasing teacher talk time to increase students talk time though pre-planning.All in all，no matter how complicated the standard of a goal teacher talk is.What specific technique are involved，the teacher talk modification is a necessary strategy，which aims at bring learners more interesting relevant，comprehensible input，so as to facilitate English acquisition as well as affection.

4.4 Motivation Internalization

Internalizing learners motivation can stimulate their positive emotion and help them become the genuine master of learning.Learners motivation can be internalized when external drives are transformed to internal ones，when the outside pushing forces are shifted to inside attractive factors or when passive drives is turned to active motivation.

The following are some ways can employ to help learners to internalize motivation：.Design tasks of proper difficulty.Cultivate learning interest. Utilize moderate competition. Praise and criticism.

4.5 Group Cooperation

Group cooperation improves the overall climate of the classroom.It provides supportive and expanded opportunities for learners to use English as well as opportunities to receive feedback from group members who put learners into great likelihood of success than individual effort could result.

To promote group cooperation in English class，those cooperative English-learning activities as peer tutoring，roundtable，group investigation may e most useful.Then，to make learners cooperate well in the group work，they had better be taught some specific skills（turn talking，active listening and positive feedback） before the work to facilitate their interaction.

4.6 Self-talk

Employing proper self-talk to cultivate positive affection inside learners，so as to eliminate influence of negative affection，based on the magic power of that uttered by others，holds the effect of leading us to the experience of happiness or the reverse.

Those low-achievers and less self-confident usually have been strongly influenced consciously or half consciously by long years of negative talk.Teachers can encourage them to tell themselves “I can do that well”，“Im not nervous at all”，“ Im better than before ” and like.Such positive self-talk helps to replace feelings of limitation by those of empowerment.It reinforces learners beliefs about their learning abilities and increases their motivation.

4.7 Games

Games role in improving learners emotion in English classroom cannot be neglected.Learning is a hard and even tiresome work at most time，while games bring pleasure and satisfaction to it.Games create a comparatively relaxed and easy atmosphere in which negative affective factors as anxiety；fear and inhibition are temporarily decreased or neglected by learners for the sake of fun.In the mean time，they are undoubtedly stimulus for learners to develop greater enthusiasm toward learning.

An appropriate game in the classroom based on a learning target，operates with a set of rules，attracts learners active participation and involves both competition and cooperation.Some traditional ones as “Passing words or phrases”，“Role-play ”，”Looking for best friends ” and so on are all effective to stimulates interest and prevent or decrease anxiety and inhibition.The games created and carried out may obtain effect both cognitively and affectively.Games may bring learner and teacher unexpected joy.

Conclusion

In English learning and leaching，learners affection plays an essential role.Solving affective problems can lead to more effective English learning and promote learners development as an all-round person.

What I have tried in this thesis aims at raising learners awareness to affection in English learning and calling for more attempts to cope with the affective problems in English learning.Basic principles are formulated and several strategies are put forward as a venturous attempt to stimulate learners learning potential.

I do hope teachers and learners shed their concerns to the affective aspects of English learning and teaching and find more strategies and affective factors，so as to promote the effect and efficiency of English learning and teaching.

Bibliography：

[1] Bruner，J.The Culture of Education [M] Cambridge MA：Harvard University Press，1996

[2] Giles，H et al .Toward a theory of Language in ethnic group relations [A].H.Giles.Language Ethnicity and Intergroup Relations [C].New York Academic Press1977Acquisition in the classroom [M].Oxford Pergamon，1983

[3]Krashen，S and T.D Terrell The Natural Approach Language Acquisitionin the classroom [M].Oxford Pergamon，1983

[4] Ledoux，J.The Emotional Brain [M].New York Simon & Schuster，1996

[5] Maslow.A.H.Religious Values and Peak-experience Cloumbus：Ohio State University，1964

[6] Rogers.C.R.A theory of therapy，personality and interpersonal relationships，as developed in the client-centred framework [A].S.koch psychology：A study of a Science vol.3.[2]New York Mc Graw-Hill，1959

[7]Schuman，J.The acculturation model for second language acquisition [A].R.Gingras.Second Language Teaching [C] Arlington，VA：Centr for Applied Linguistics，1987

[8]秦小琴 大学生外语学习归因倾向及其对归因现象的理解 [J] 现代外语，2002

[9]文卫平，朱玉明 外语学习情感障碍研究 [M] 西安：西安大学出版社，1997

[10]卢家楣 <<情感教学心理>> 上海教育出版社，2000