I find english fascinating

Art of improvement

Affective filter to teach pronunciation

I've been a teacher for over a year, not much time, but it helped me to realise how important is to encourage the students to talk, to ask questions, to try. 

What's the problem? they are there to learn but they aren't trying. Sometimes we got angry and mad at this situation and it shows off, the students can see it and we aren't helping them. Since I work with adults I have to deal with many negative emotions that don't help them in the learning process. They Face frustration, despair, worry, sadness, or shame, and students tend to lose access to their own memory, reasoning, and the capacity to make connections.

"This affective filter is a mental barrier both teachers and students must reduce in order to learn" (Roberton, 2011)

Stephen Krashen suggests the affective filter hypothesis, which states that some factors such as motivation, self confience and anxiety can influence the second language acquisition. According to Krashen learners with high motivation, self confidence and a low level of anxiety will better success in language acquisition. "Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to 'raise' the affective filter and form a 'mental block' that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition." (Schütz,R. 2014)

Knowing this it shure come to your mind: How am I (teacher) goint to reduce my student´s affective filter? In my expierience is not so easy but it's worth it. My recomendations are: 

• Be a friend that shares knowledge, not just "the teacher"
• Be playful with the students.
• Make them know it is okay to make mistakes (and it comes to my mind "error correction" but I will be talking about this in another entrance)
• and of course Have fun.

References

Du, X.(2009) The Affective Filter in Second Language Teaching. Asian Social Sience <http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/viewFile/3457/3131>. Online. February, 1st, 2016.

Roberton, T. (2011) Reducing Affective Filter in Adult English Language Learning Classrooms. The evergreen state collage. <http://archives.evergreen.edu/masterstheses/Accession2010-03MEd/2011/Roberton_Tim_MEd_2011.pdf> Online. February 1st, 2016.

Schütz, R. (2014). Stephen Krashen's Theory of Second Language Acquisition. English Made in Brazil <http://www.sk.com.br/sk-krash.html>. Online. february 1st, 2016.
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