Affective Teaching In Senior High School English Teaching In The Background Of New Course Reform

Cognition and affect are two aspects that play an important role in senior high school English teaching. In traditional teaching, teachers only pay more attention to the students'cognitive knowledge while neglecting their affective states. Since the English Curriculum Standard of Ordinary High School (experimental draft) was issued by our country's Ministry of Education in 2001, the situation has been changed a lot. The affective goal was considered to be one of the important goals in English teaching and learning. As English teachers, they should concentrate on the students'affective states in their teaching. Therefore, more and more researchers at home and abroad begin to study in affective domain to improve the efficiency of English teaching.The paper is an attempt to answering and solving the following question:If the affective teaching can improve the students'affective states as well as the cognitive abilities. The author does the experiment in Yi Jun Senior High School in Tong Chuan City, Shaanxi province for four months. The subjects are 80 students from senior one. They are divided into two groups. Each group consists of 40 students, and they are all in the same cognitive level at the beginning of the experiment. Class 4 is control group, while class 2 is experimental group. During the four-month experiment, students in experimental class are given more attention to their affective states and are carried out the affective teaching strategies in chapter three. For students in control class, they are just given the traditional teaching methods. Meanwhile, at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, students from the two groups are asked to do a language test to see if the cognitive abilities of students in experimental class will be improved much more than that of students in control class.At the same time, the author uses the interview and teacher's classroom observations to prove her research question. After analyzing the results of the questionnaire, interview and the teacher's classroom observation, the author found that the affective states as well as the cognitive abilities of students in experimental class have been improved much more than that of students in control class. Therefore, the senior high school English teachers should carry out affective teaching in the teaching process.This thesis consists of six chapters. In chapter one the author analyzes the background of new course reform and the problem of English teaching in senior high school, including the problem of teachers and students. At the same time, the affective goal in English new course reform has also been introduced. Chapter two is literature review. The author introduces the definitions of affective teaching. Four kinds of definitions put forward by the famous researchers are mentioned here, which are all very authoritative. Before understanding the affective teaching, the author talks about affect research at home and abroad, which plays an important part in the whole thesis.The theoretical bases of thesis are Carl Rogers's Humanistic Psychological Theory and Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory, which have a great influence on English teaching and learning. Humanistic approaches emphasize the importance of the inner world of the learners, paying more attention to affect as well as cognition. Jean Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory emphasizes on learners'initiative, community and condition in the process of learning.A series of affective teaching strategies are put forward in chapter three, such as stimulating the students'learning motivation, building a harmonious relationship with the students and so on. Chapter four presents the whole procedure of the experiment. According to the data of the experiment in chapter four, affective teaching can improve the students'affective states as well as their cognitive abilities much more. In Chapter five the author analyzes the results of the questionnaire, interview and teacher's observation. The last chapter is conclusion, where the implications of the thesis are presented. At the same time, the limitations of the thesis as well as the suggestions for future research are included.