A Research On The Affective Status Of High School Students In English Learning

Affect is a peculiar psychological phenomenon to mankind. It plays an essential part insenior high school English learning and teaching. In2001, the Ministry of Educationpromulgated the English New Curriculum Standards. It states that affect is considered as animportant element in learning and development of high school students. For high schoolteachers, it is also required as one of the most vital teaching contents and teaching goals. Highschool is a vital period of the adolescents. Thus the teachers should integrate affect intolanguage teaching in order to increase learners’ positive affects and decrease their negativeaffects, which meets the requirement of quality-oriented education.This study carries out investigations and researches on affective factors of high schoolstudents in English learning, especially the comparison of top students, middle students andunder-achievers. The thesis aims to find out students’ learning problems in affective factors, soas to promote students’ confidence in English learning, and meanwhile, improve teachers’affective awareness and qualities. The thesis does researches on four major affective factors oflanguage learners; namely, attitude, motivation, confidence and anxiety. Attitude refers to theneural and mental state of readiness. It is organized through experience and it has a directive ordynamic influence on individuals’ response to all objects and related situations. Motivation is acomplicated set of variables. They include desire to achieve goals, as well as effort and attitudestowards the learning of the language. Self-confidence refers to a healthy mental and neural stateof belief in achieving goals; a great power and guarantee of accomplishment of activities. As foranxiety, it is a subjective feeling of tension, worry, apprehension, and nervousness which areassociated with the arousal of the autonomic nervous system.Five research instruments are adopted in the present study, including literature search,questionnaire survey, interviews, tests and teaching experiment. In order to better understandstudents’ affects in English learning, a survey is conducted to300students in Weifang No.7Middle School in Shandong province. A total of295pieces of feedbacks are regarded aseffective questionnaires. In addition, the author has interviewed10teachers and30students.Meanwhile, a teaching experiment lasting from September,2011to late March,2012wascarried out in the author’s two classes; one was the experimental class and the other was the control class. The scores of the pre-test and post-test were soon collected after the exams onJuly21,2011and April2,2012respectively. The data of the questionnaire and teachingexperiment is counted and worked out with the help of the computer software--SPSS (theStatistical Package for Social Science). The conversation materials gathered from the interviewsare sorted out and analyzed by the author.Based on the results of the investigation, the author finds that most of the subjects have anactive learning attitude. They are willing to learn English as a foreign language and are awareof the necessity of learning English. As for motivation, most of the subjects have obviouslearning motivation. In most cases, it’s a mixture of intrinsic motivation and extrinsicmotivation. On the one hand, with intrinsic motivation, they are interested in learning theculture and the customs of English-speaking countries. On the other hand, they also hold strongextrinsic motivation, such as pressure of their parents or a future job. When it comes toconfidence, more than half of the subjects are confident to learn English well.However, high anxiety exists in current high school English classes and the subjects’anxieties are mainly focused on classroom anxiety and communication anxiety. In addition,according to the survey, top students, average students and under-achievers have greatdifferences in attitude, motivation, confidence and anxiety. Top students have positive learningattitude, definite motivation, more confidence and less anxiety while under-achievers are justthe other way around. They have negative learning attitude, indefinite motivation, lessconfidence and more anxiety. Average students fall in between. To settle these problems, ateaching experiment which lasts for over seven months is carried out. During the experiment,the following measures are taken; motivating students in English learning, building up theirconfidence, alleviating their anxiety and helping them form a positive attitude. During theteaching experiment, we pay special attention to the development of under-achievers.According to the results of the experiment, students in the experimental group, especiallyunder-achievers achieved greater progress and better grades than those in the control group.Therefore, it is of great importance that in high school language teaching, we should payspecial stress on how to improve students’ positive attitude, build their confidence in Englishlearning, stimulate their learning motivation, and reduce their language anxiety. It’s even vitalfor the teachers to guide the under-achievers out of their learning problems. Based on the results, analysis and discussion, some implications and suggestions related toaffective teaching in high schools are put forward. It is sincerely hoped that this research can docertain help to improve teachers’ affective awareness and qualities. Besides, the author alsohopes that this study will shed light on overcoming high school students’ affective problems,cultivating their positive affects in English learning, building up their confidence, and formingtheir interest in English learning.