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This comprehensive guide explores the significance of affective factors in teaching English, covering motivation, anxiety, inhibition, and more in primary and middle school settings. Learn how to foster positive attitudes and effective learning environments for students.
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AFFECT in RuralPrimary and Middle School ELT Prof. Yin Shiyin School of Foreign Languages, Sichuan Normal University1135134116@qq.com
Pre-tasks Why affect and attitudes are so important in ELT？ What are the affective factors in primary and junior ELT? As an EL teacher in a primary or junior middle school, how do you motivate your Ss to learn English?
Who learns how much of what language under what conditions? (Spolsky, 1989: 3) Who longs to learn how much of what language under what conditions? (Zhang Zhengdong, 2001)
Affect and attitudes refer to the relative factors that can affect students, learning processes and learning effects such as interest, motivation, self-confidence, volition, cooperation, etc., and their national awareness and international field of view gradually formed in their learning processes. Keeping active learning attitude is the key to the success in the learning of English. Therefore, in his teaching, a teacher should try to constantly stimulate and strengthen the students’ interest in learning, and guide them in gradually transferring their interest into steady learning motivation, in order that they can have self-confidence, temper their willpower to overcome difficulties, realize their advantages and disadvantages in learning, willingly cooperate with others, and form concordant, healthy, and positive personalities.
2. Why is Affect so important in ELT?
(1) The current situation Exam-oriented education: emotional illiteracy modern robot one-dimensional man Competence-oriented education Humanistic education: education: educe/elicit/evoke/evolve humanism whole-person development
3. Main affective factors in primary and junior/senior middle school ELT
(1) Anxiety Anxiety is quite possible the affect that most pervasively obstructs the learning process. It is associated with negative feelings such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, and tension.
debilitating anxiety facilitating anxiety • The degree of self-esteem; (2) Tolerance of ambiguity; (3) Risk-taking; (4) Competitiveness; (5) Society anxiety; (6) Test anxiety; (7) Cultural identity and cultural shock; (8) Beliefs of learners and teachers; (9) Classroom activities and methods; (10) Instructor-learner interactions
Horwrtz et al. (1986) describe three components of foreign language anxiety. The first is communication apprehension. They propose that the language student has mature thoughts and ideas but an immature second-language vocabulary with which to express them. The inability either to express oneself or to comprehend another person leads to frustration and apprehension. The second component, closely related to the first, is fear of negative social evaluation, because students are unsure of themselves and what they are saying, they may feel that they are not able to make the proper social impression. The third component is test anxiety, namely, apprehension over academic evaluation. The pedagogical requirements of the school and teacher require that the student continually be assessed on aspects of proficiency while that proficiency is being acquired. These three components then, communication apprehension, fear of social evaluation, and test anxiety, are viewed by Horwitz et al. to have a deleterious effect on second-language acquisition. (Maclntyre and Gardner, 1989:252-253)
(2) Inhibition He has no way, but runs away!
Making mistakes is implicit in language learning. We made them when we were children learning our first language, and we cannot help making them when we learn a second language as older children or adults. However, as young children, we were not inhibited and thus could participate freely in the learning adventure, taking risks as needed. When learning we have to be able to ‘gamble’ a bit, to be willing to try out hunches about the language and to take a reasonable risk of being wrong. Inhibitions develop when small children gradually learn to identify a self that is distinct from others, and their affectively traits begin to form. With greater awareness comes the need to protect a fragile ego, if necessary by avoiding whatever might threaten the self. Strong criticism and words of ridicule can greatly weaken the ego, and the weaker the ego, the higher the walls of inhibition.
(4) Empathy The process of “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. ” (Brown)
(5) Motivation: incentive drive instrumental motivation ●Motivation integrative motivation (Gardner & Lambert 1972) intrinsic motivation ●Motivation extrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan 1985:284) cognitive drive ●Drive ego-enhancement drive affiliative drive (David P. Ausubel)
(6) Classroom transactions Francis Bailey (1996:261) refers to the social structure of the classroom as “a kind of ‘culture’ which is created out of the communal interactions among course participants”. In this special society established within the classroom, the affective dimension of the relationships among the learner, the teacher and the other learners can greatly influence the direction and outcome of the experience. As Angi Malderez points out, the importance of affect for what occurs in the classroom can be seen in the shift in the dominant metaphor for the teaching/learning process from transmission to dialogue; dialogue involves people -- thinking and feeling, spiritual and physical human beings -- in negotiation of meaning. What is important in the end is not the words have meanings but rather that people have meanings they use words to convey (personal communication).
thick ego boundaries (linear approach) (7) Ego boundaries thin ego boundaries (non- linear approach) tolerance of ambiguity/accommodation/ regression/regression in the service of the ego
(8) Self-esteem a sense of security a sense of identity A positive image a sense of belonging a sense of purpose a sense of personal competence (Robert Reasooner)
(9) Imagery Visualization-- language learning with the mind’s eye
4. Ways of bettering teaching by devoting much attention to the affective factors in ELT
(2) Language and paralanguage Then what’s your dream in your ELT?
Baroque largo (G. Lozanov’s Suggestopedia) (6) Adopting music
Further reading Aronld, J.，Affect in Language Learning. 外语教学与研究 出版社，人民教 育出版社，剑桥 大学出版社， 2000年.
Post-tasks Group work: Discuss with your group mates on the following topics. 1. The important roles affect plays in English learning and teaching 2. Motivation in English learning 3. How to make my teaching more interesting and more effective?
