On the Emotional Factors in English Learning

On the Emotional Factors in English Learning

郑文平

I. Introduction

As is known to all, English, as a worldwide language, is spoken by many people from all over the world, and it plays an important role in international communication. In our society, English learning is becoming more and more popular. Every student needs to master the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. During the process of study, the teachers should pay more attention to emotional factors in English learning. Living in an age of information and global economy, it is commonly accepted that we should learn English well, English can increase the understanding between China and other countries. Facing this situation, English learning should pay more attention at any time. Therefore, this paper presents accelerate English learning concerning the aspect of emotional factors. Emotional factors play an important role in second language learning and it has been concerned in the field of education since the second half of the twentieth century. What's more, more and more researchers began to study the emotional factors that are assumed to affect the inpidual learners greatly. Nowadays on the view of middle school education, emotional factors have become a great deal of demand of English New Curriculum Standards.

II. Learners’ Emotional Factors and English Learning

Emotional Factors have been considered as very popular in English learning in these years, and many teachers have realized it. Therefore, as an English teacher, you should deal with the relationship between learner and emotional factors in English learning so that students can study English well.

2.1 Classifications of Emotional Factors

Emotional factors include many aspects, for example, motivation, anxiety, personality,attitude and others factors. This paper mainly deal with these four emotional factors. They are as follows:  

2.1.1 Motivation

    Studying motivation is based on learning needs. Learning needs is the reflection of the requirements of society and education to students. Under the influence of society and education, the students have changed the requirements of society and education into their own demands, and they have had the awareness that they needs. It is a state of mind in which inpiduals initiate and sustain action. Motivation usually refers to the efforts made by the students so as to satisfy the desire to learn in their study. Cardner and Lambert (1972) pided motivation into instrumental and combination of the two categories. The former is the learner's functional goal, that is, to use foreign language tools to find a good job, to obtain certain qualifications, and to improve their social status. The latter refers to the desire of the learners and the target language cultural groups. One of the emotional factors affecting students learning English is motivation, it influences students' learning effects, which is achieved by restricting the students' learning enthusiasm, strong learning motivation, and it is certain to show higher learning enthusiasm in learning, make students concentrate on learning with great enthusiasm. On the contrary, the lack of learning motivation lead to the inevitable lack of enthusiasm for learning, it is certain to produce fear and disgust, affect the efficiency of learning. Therefore, Motivation is the key to determining the efficiency and success of a foreign language and it can also provide the basic motivation for foreign language learners.

2.1.2 Anxiety

Anxiety is considered to be one of the most emotional factors that hinder the learning process. Horwize and Cope give it a scientific definition: a classroom learning, which related to the process of learning in a significant sense of self perception, beliefs and emotional complex. Cardner is more explicit: the sense of tension and fear associated with the two languages' contexts. The influence of anxiety on foreign language learning that is mainly caused by the learners' subjective emotional factors and objective environmental factors. Some subjective emotional factors such as learner's personality, self esteem, risk taking and language fuzziness are closely related to anxiety. Students generally save face, shy, introverted, conservative, worried about their communication in the target language to fully express their feelings and opinions, thus they are afraid of others, for their level is too low. The objective environmental factors of the learners come from the classroom teaching, the competition among the students, the family pressure and the cultural conflicts between the two languages. The study found that high anxiety and low anxiety are not beneficial to language learning, only moderate anxiety can help language learning, and this condition was known as anxiety. It keeps learners alert and motivated, and it is ready to learn new tasks. On the contrary, debilitating anxiety makes learners addicted to depressed psychological activities, thinking and education for relative reduction of energy, language input is difficult, the effect of the output will decrease, which will further increase the possibility of the occurrence of anxiety.

2.1.3 Personality

     It includes the introverted and extroverted personality. People generally think that extroverted learners: cheerful, enthusiastic, talkative and sociable, they are suitable for learning language; for introverted learners: quiet and poor expression, they are not suitable for language learning. As a matter of fact, learners of the same type can use different strategies when dealing with different learning tasks. Arnold (1999) believes that the extroverts have enhanced self-esteem and hope others to whole themselves as independent; the introverts get this feeling from their own inner personality, he is great, there is a high degree of empathy experience, the quality of language learning is very beneficial. Extroverted learners have good conversation, good response, so as to get more input and practice opportunities, but they often do not pay attention to the language form; and introverted learners may be good at a more detailed analysis in the form of limited input by the quiet personality, especially, the advantage in the focus on language forms and rules in the classroom teaching environment.

    2.1.4Attitude

    Attitude generally refers to a kind of appraisal reaction that inpidual to the thing or person. Foreign researchers think that attitude includes three parts: cognitive, effective and conative. Cognition refers to the inpidual to the faith of things; emotion refers to appraise the reaction of things. Some people think that attitude can be learned, and can be changed by learning, while it is relatively stable and lasting. 

2.2 The Relationship between Learners’ Emotional Factors and

   English Learning                                                         

    Emotional factors and English learning are inseparable, and emotional factors are the basis of English learning, dealing with the relationship between the two which is very helpful to learn English well.

    2.2.1 Motivation and English Learning

Motivation is a prerequisite for learning. Studies show that students with strong motivation often have serious learning attitude and strong learning will. The strength of the student's dominant motivation can affect the students' academic performance. The relationship between motivation and learning are typical of mutually reinforcing relationships, and high motivational levels are good for achieving goals. High academic achievement, which in turn increases the level of motivation. When students achieve excellent academic performance, the desire for knowledge will be satisfied, and there will be a positive emotional experience as well as their original learning motivation. Further enhancement is available. Although achievement has a great influence on motivation, people's needs have surpassed an excellent good grades of study. Therefore, motivation not only depend on achievement, but other factors should be taken into account.

2.2.2 Anxiety and Language Learning

    Anxiety is considered as the biggest emotional obstacle in foreign language learning (Arnold, 1999). The learner is anxious about a particular situation or event, such as an exam. Generally speaking, the anxiety of class participation makes learners feel fear, nervous and stress. The attention of the learners will influence the learners' cognitive ability, which can influence memory and thinking. The energy reduction reduces the learner's language storage and output. On the one hand, the negative effect of anxiety affect English learning. In the eyes of teachers and students, anxiety is often seen as a barrier to the learning process in foreign languages. The learners, especially in the early learning efficiency, students' motivation is not strong and has the high anxiety. Learners will have different levels of anxiety about learning when they use a foreign language. On the other hand, anxiety has a positive effect on English learning. Although people tend to think about the aspect of negative anxiety, it is thought that anxiety is in the foreign language learning process. It should be avoided. But anxiety also has a positive effect on foreign language learning.

2.2.3 Personality and Language Learning

    Personality type directly influences the formation and use of learning strategies and affects English learning. First, extroverted learners who have basic interpersonal communication skills are excellent. This is mainly because the extroversion gives the learner more chances to practice and input. Outgoing learners are good at creating and mastering the language of learning and use, as they speak and relate to others. The introverted learner is a bit inferior to this, but they tend to be good at observing and thinking. So language learning has a greater chance of success. Second, introverted learners develop linguistic cognitive abilities. There is an advantage in cognitive academic language ability, mainly because they are reading and writing more time in teaching, English teachers often feel that some students have the courage to say a word in class. They are active and responsive, but they are active, distracted and interested. The other group of students didn't respond positively to the teacher's question, always with a low head and a nervous look. 2.2.4 Attitude and English Learning

    Language learning is time-consuming and arduous work. If we have no sufficient motivation, the study tactics will have no effect in practice and the teachers can't teach. Students without motivation and the language learning cannot gain success. In the view of teachers, the endeavor which can improve the students’ motivation plays an important part in teaching.

Ⅲ. The Cultivation and Stimulation of Emotional Factors 

3.1 The Motivation in English Learning

    There are two factors about the motivation in middle school students’ English learning. They are internal factors and external factors. The internal factors includes five needs. They are security needs, willingness and love needs, the need for respect cognitive needs, the need for self actualization.

3.2 The Cultivation and Stimulation of Motivation in English

Learning

As an English teacher, we should encourage students to study English well and cultivate their learning interests. We must help students set appropriate goals to develop their study skills so that they can have a good future.

3.2.1 Cultivating Students' Learning Interests

In English teaching we should pay attention to the cultivation of students' interest. When interest becomes students’ habits. Learning interest is an important psychological component of motivation, which is characterized by learning. The process of pursing knowledge is accompanied by a pleasant emotional experience, which leads to the need for further learning. It is an internal motivation that points to the learning activity itself. So cultivating interest is a factor of motivation, it can make the student have high emotion, full of spirit with study enthusiasm. The purpose of improving learning effect is to transform into motivation and promote the development of students' intelligence. As a result, in English teaching, we must constantly create conditions, environment and atmosphere that enable students to develop strong interests.

3.2.2 Setting Appropriate Goals

    Teachers should help students identify learning goals and develop a learning plan. Learning goals are both needed in setting its long-term and high level. The goal is both the direction of the student's efforts and the standard of evaluation signs of learning and progress.

So when we encourage students to learn English well, we can't just give students "hard study". But to let students know that learning is meaningful for them, making sure they know what they are going to learn from learning, teaching students how to achieve the goal, and make specific recommendations for the students' goals. For example, to train the students' hearing, give the students the requirement to listen for 30 minutes a day. The content can be English radio, English songs, can also be targeted English listening materials. And it suggests that students can consciously instead of forcing yourself to sit down and listen to it, listen to it while you're eating and washing. In this way a kind of habit then, every day persistence, their listening level will improve naturally.

3.2.3 Praising and Criticizing

Praising and criticizing are common ways to reflect students. It is found that the reward will improve the student's motivation and be persistent. Therefore, the teachers in the classroom should be not mean their encouragements especially for those who are low achievers and are trying to avoid failure. Rewards partly a lot of, not necessarily material, the teacher's sentence "Good", "Well done!". Studies have shown that when people's internal motivations are less stable, they need to be. It is important to use material rewards to maintain, and the younger are more tend to appear that. The effect of punishment is to overcome the lack of concentration, procrastination, laziness and inactivity in the learning process. Work hard to avoid punishment by trying to avoid punishment, so that the purpose of promoting learning is to promote learning role. But the use of punishment can make students nervous and affect their learning efficiency. It even causes hostility. But rewards can't be abused. The negative influence of reward and punishment are the learning of reward or threat. The effect of rewards is short-lived. It motivates external motivation, and the key to teaching is motivating students' internal motivations. This requires creating one. A method or measure that meets the students' psychological needs. The factors that affect students' external motivation in English learning are not fixed, they will be cultural. The same age is because of character changes. Students' personality differences, family background, study environment, class, the teaching arts of the class will influence the students' motivation. One of the tasks of teaching is controlling the impact motivation. The most important thing is to motivate students to actively engage in learning activities.

Ⅳ.Conclusion

Emotional factors play an important role in English learning. More and more teachers have focused on factors in foreign language learning in recent years with the problems of emotional factors. This paper mainly about show four aspects of emotional in English learning. It mainly refers to the emotional factors of attitude, motivation, anxiety, and personality. And the relationship between these factors and English learning. It includes the definition of these and the function of English learning. It also includes how to cultivate and stimulate students interest on the emotional factors in English learning. In a word, emotional is a term that refers to the purpose and effective sides of a person's reactions to what is going on. What’s more, teachers can affect the lives and personal growth of learners by what transpires in the classroom. Therefore, the teachers should integrate affect into language teaching. To pay attention to learners' emotional education is also a way to educate all. We should pay more attention to emotional factors, which can deal with the relationship between them so as to the students can study English well.