A Study On The Negative Affect And Causes In English Learning Of Senior High School Students

Affect is a psychological phenomenon,which is considered broadly as emotion,feeling,mood or attitude that influence people’s behavior.And affect plays a significant role in the field of education.Psychologist Lu Jiamei(2002)put forward with the idea that the student’s learning affect can be divided into positive affect and negative affect,and negative affect mainly include anxiety,weak motivation,incorrect attitude,fear of failure,inferiority,etc.Senior high school period is an important stage for students to form sound personalities and negative affect will hinder students’ learning effect as well as the development of correct values towards study and life.Since the 1960s,the development of humanism has gradually matured.In order to realize the all-round development of human beings,individuals’cognitive and affective aspects should not be separated.Therefore,more and more attention has been paid to the influence of affective factors on language teaching and learning.In the 1980s,linguist Krashen put forward the Affective Filter Hypothesis,and expounded the relationship between the process of second language acquisition and affective factors.The research of Lu Jiamei(2012)reveals that there is not enough emphasis for affective education in China.As for the subject of English,affective problems will influence the effect of students’English learning to a large degree.Based on the previous theories of Humanistic Psychology,Affective Filter Hypothesis and Self-efficacy Theory,the author tries to answer the following questions:(1)What is the current level of negative affect of senior high school students’ English learning and what are the main negative affective factors?(2)What are the main causes behind the negative affect of senior high school students’ English learning?(3)How to effectively alleviate and eliminate the negative affect of senior high school students’ English learning?This study adopts the methods of questionnaire and semi-structured interview.Subjects are 176 students from grade two and 4 English teachers in a senior high school of Beijing.Besides,the author adopts SPSS 20.0 to analyze the results of the questionnaire and records the interview by phone.Based on the results of the questionnaire and interview,the main findings include:(1)In general,senior high school students’negative affect of English learning is in the state of medium-high level.The main negative affective factors include:fear of failure,weak motivation,incorrect attitude,anxiety and interpersonal relationship problems.(2)There is a significant difference in the personality types,and introvert students have more obvious negative emotions than that of extrovert students.(3)A distinct difference exists in the level of English scores.Students with lower English scores have more serious negative affect.(4)There is also a significant difference in the time spent by students on English learning.Students spending less time have a tendency to show more obvious negative affect.(5)The main causes of negative affect include personal factors,family factors,school-related factors and social factors.According to the findings of this study,the author puts forward some relevant suggestions to relieve the negative affect in English learning and promote English teaching and learning effect:For English teachers,they should involve various activities and practical knowledge to improve students’English learning interest and motivation.In addition,teachers ought to teach students in accordance of their aptitude as well as relieve English learning anxiety.For students,they should have proper English learning plan,make suitable goals,and constantly acquire the sense of achievement from English learning.Besides,students should also relax themselves properly and increase English learning interest.