Affective literacy for TESOL teachers in China

It has been recognised that the efficiency of foreign language learning is enhanced through attention to factors such as stress, anxiety and motivation (Wei 2007), or the affective environment through which students learn language. This article proposes the creation of an appropriate affective environment for language learning through the teaching of themes that create a bridge to the personal side of English teaching and engage with the desires of Chinese learners. Affective literacy is the term given to the approach outlined in this article. It combines research that has gone into exploring affect in language teaching (Schumann 1998; Young 1999) with work on affect in second-language acquisition (Gardner and MacIntyre 1993; Arnold 1999). This article addresses three aspects of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) that are relevant to teaching in China: • building positive attitudes towards English teaching and learning by attending to the affective environment of the classroom • a student-centred pedagogy that rewards the learner through emotionally satisfying experiences • interpersonal meaning as a core concern for the TESOL teacher, so that Chinese learners may use English to build relationships. It also presents five themes that develop a motivational and emotional backdrop through which teachers of English in China can attend to the motivational and psychological aspects of teaching and learning, and through which students of English in China can take control of their own learning.