1、情感因素在二语习得中的作用及启示# 情感因素在二语习得中的作用及启示# The Effects of Affective Factors in SLA and Pedagogical Implications Abstract:# Affective factors include emotion, feeling, mood, manner, attitude and so on. They are the most important factors in SLA and English teaching. Under the guidance of the Affective Filte
2、r Hypothesis proposed by Krashen, this paper tends to make a brief analysis of the effects of affective factors in SLA and its pedagogical implications. That is to say, it is very helpful to study English with good mood, feeling, manner, and students can get more knowledge with good mood. On the con
3、trary, students with poor English often feel tired, boring and even anxious when they attend the class. The affective factors will surely help the teachers to improve their teaching quality and students to cultivate an all-round development. 1. Affective Filter Hypothesis Affective Filter Hypothesis
4、 was proposed by Krashen. He put the Affective Filter Hypothesis into five central hypotheses in SLA, namely, the Acquisition-learning distinction;# the Natural order hypothesis;# the Monitor hypothesis;# the Input hypothesis and the Affective Filter Hypothesis. Krashen argued that affective filter
5、is a kind of psychological obstacle that prevents language learners from absorbing available comprehensible input completely. He looked affective factors functioning as a filter that reduces the amount of language input the learner is able to understand. It has a close relationship with the language
6、 learners input and intake. It can be said that affective factors determine the proportion of language learners input and intake. The affective factors include certain emotions, such as motivation, self-confidence, anxiety, and so on in the process of acquiring a second language. These negative emot
7、ions prevent efficient processing of the language input, and on the contrary, the positive emotions promote the efficiency of the process. When language learners with high motivation, self-confidence and a low level of anxiety, they have low filters and so receive and take in plenty of input. On the
8、 other hand, learners with low motivation, little self-confidence and a high level of anxiety have high filters and therefore obtain little input. The Affective Filter Hypothesis shows that the emotional factors strongly affect the learnersinput and how much input is converted into intake. Thats the
9、 reason why Krashen stated that:# the Affective Filter Hypothesis captures the relationship between affective variables and the process of second acquisition by positing that acquirers vary with respect to the strength or level of their affective filters. Those whose attitudes are not optimal for se
10、cond language acquisition will not only tend to seek less input, but they will also have a high or strong affective filter-even if they understand the message, the input will not reach that part of the brain responsible for language acquisition, or the language acquisition device. Those with attitud
11、es more conducive to second language acquisition will not only seek and obtain more input, they will also have a lower or weaker filter. They will be more open to the input, and it will strike deeper. (Stephan Krashen, 1982:# 31) The Affective Filter Hypothesis has significant implications for forei
12、gn language teaching. A low filter should be created and advocated for the effective language teaching. It can be guessed that learners affective filters will be influenced by teachers feedback. Attempts should be made to lower the affective filter and let learners feel less stressed and more confid
13、ent in a comfortable learning atmosphere. 2. The Affective Factors Affective factors in second language acquisition play an important role and some western scholars believe that its role is even more important than cognitive factors. They are related to the learners emotional state and attitude towa
14、rd the target language. The affective factors may hinder the learners to absorb input information because of a psychological barrier. The main affective factors include motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. 2.1 Motivation Motivation is considered to be one of the most important factors, which aff
15、ect the learners language input and intake. It is commonly thought of as an inner drive, impluse, emotion, or desire that moves one to a particular action. Cardner defines motivation to learn a second language as the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a
16、desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity. It is considered as a key to successful learning. In a word, motivation is the process by which goal-directed behavior is stimulated in language learning. It drives and directs behavior. It is obviously that motivation directly and p
17、rofoundly influences how often students use foreign language learning (FLL) strategies;# how much input they receive in the language being learned;# how high their general proficiency level becomes;# and how long they persevere and maintain FLL skills after language study is over. Motivation is such
18、 an important factor in language learning that no teacher could avoid being concerned with his students motivation in the process of language teaching. 2.2 Self-confidence Self-confidence is considered to be another significant factor, which profoundly influences the learners language performance. I
19、t is a kind of optimistic emotion that language learners firmly believe they can overcome troubles to gain success. Self-confidence is to be a kind of active affective factor. As for foreigh language learners, self-confidence often plays a decisive role in foreigh language learning, and if you want
20、to succeed, you should possess the major quality-self-confidence. The students who lack of confidence are usually found to be extremely fearful and timid, reluctant to express their opinions and even unable to utter a complete meaningful sentence in class. The concept of self-confidence can be defin
21、ed as a process of producing the strongest force from the bottom of ones heart in doing something. It is a state of surpassing oneself consistently. Of all the possible characteristics that can affect language learning, self-confidence is very important for the following reasons. First of all, when
22、a person has self-confidence he believes in himself. He believes that he can and will succeed, and gives him the courage to try new learning. One would be willing to take some risks in order to be successful. Moveover, a confident person rarely gives up. Even they meet difficulties in the process of
23、 studying, they never give up. When their achievements are noticed more by others at school, they are more likely to succeed. To sum up, self-confidence is regarded as one of the most important factors in language learning process. It enables people to take risks, try again when they fail, and enjoy
24、 their accomplishments when they win. With these abilities, a confident student can succeed in language learning. All in all, self-confidence means a lot in language learning. 2.3 Anxiety Anxiety is another influential factor in affective domain. It is thought to be the most important negative affec
25、tive factor affecting foreign language acquision. It is associated with negative feeling, such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, appreciation and tension. Anxiety may be a kind of temporary psychological state, and also a kind of psychological character that can last for a long time. It is one
26、 of the most prominent and pervasive emotions. May (1996) comprehended that anxiety is the apprehension cued off by a threat to some value that the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality. It is a feeling of uneasy suspense, the tense anticipation of a threatening but vague even
27、t. According to Arnold (2000:# 59), language anxiety ranks high among factors influencing language learning, regardless of whether the setting is informal or not (learning language on the streets) or formal (in the classroom). Students with anxiety attending the class will feel nervous and afraid to
28、 cooperate with teachers and then they cannot concentrate on the learning points and waste their energy or they just want to flee the learning task. Anxiety reveals that researchers have indeed use different constructs for their anxiety research and possible efficiency strategies should be taken to
29、retard students anxious state and let them study at an ease atmosphere. Thus make students learn more language knowledge in the class. 3. Pedagogical Implications According to the above analysis, the significance of the study of affective factors can be summarized into three major points below:# To
30、start with, motivation directly and profoundly influences how much knowledge they gained from learning language. With high motivation, students have high enthusiasm and spirit in English learning;# they can concentrate themselves on classes. On the other hand, students who cannot concentrate themsel
31、ves on classes often have low motivation and they do not know the purposes of learning language. So the teachers should try their best to assure their students maintain high motivation in the process of SLA. In addition, self-confidence is another important factor, which influences the learners lang
32、uage performances. Students with much confidence in language learning believe that they have the ability to learn the language well and consequently they will perform very actively in classes and their grades in English are high. However, students with little self-confidence do not believe themselve
33、s in learning the language well. They are not active in classes, and do not care about their marks though they are really bad. Therefore, the studies of self-confidence have meaningful implications for language teachers. What should be solved is how to help students to establish and strengthen their self-confidence when they learn the second language. Successful language learning only takes place in an en
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