What makes an effective teacher? One key ingredient of being a successful teacher is creating a low affective filter in your classroom. What is an "affective filter”?
The Affective Filter Hypothesis is a theory by linguist, Stephen Krashen, suggesting that there is a psychological wall that affects language acquisition. The psychological wall is referred to as the “affective filter”. Krashen’s theory proposes that learning a language is affected by a student’s emotions. For example, when a student’s affective filter is high (or their psychological wall is high), students feel stress, anxiety, and self-conscious. They may feel unmotivated to learn the language. According to Krashen’s theory, these negative emotions hinder, or block, language learning. When a student’s affective filter is low (or their psychological barrier is low), they feel safe, motivated and self-confident, all of which help language acquisition to flourish.
Why is it important to know about the Affective Filter?
A goal of an English language learner (ELL) teacher, and any teacher, is creating a classroom atmosphere in which their students’ affective filter is low. Creating a classroom that is warm, welcoming, respectful, caring and supportive where students feel safe and accepted keeps students’ affective filter low and fosters language acquisition. The lower the affective filter, the more language development, or any learning for that matter, will occur.
How do I keep my students’ affective filter low in my classroom?
Praise your students! Frequently smile, high five, or compliment your students. This will provide a comfortable environment where students take risks. Taking risks helps to foster language learning.
Have fun! Make learning fun and non-threatening by playing learning games, singing songs, dancing, or incorporating hands-on activities such as arts and crafts into your instruction.
Be patient. Allow your students to speak when they feel ready to do so. Forcing output too early will increase stress and anxiety within your students.
Be compassionate. Understand that learning a new language and culture can be stressful! Be supportive while your students are adjusting to a new language and culture.
Teach what interests your students. Get to know your students. What interests them? Have students suggest what they want to learn and have their interests guide your instruction. This gives students a sense of control. It also helps students to be an active part of their language learning journey.
Demonstrate an interest in the topics you are teaching. Showing students that you are genuinely interested and enjoying the content that you are teaching is motivating to students.
Embrace errors and avoid correcting students if this will make the student feel embarrassed. Promote taking risks while learning English. Teach students that errors are acceptable and are a natural part of language learning.
Teach content that will ensure success. Make sure your instruction is at the correct level of your students, so that they feel motivated and successful. Provide comprehensible input to ensure that students understand the content you are teaching.
Activate your students’ prior knowledge. Get to know your students’ backgrounds and use this to guide your instruction, motivate your students, and to make sure your students’ learning is successful. Include universal topics in your instruction and avoid topics that students are unfamiliar with like American baseball and football or snow if your students come from a tropical climate.
Pair or group work. If your students enjoy working together, then include activities for group or pair work. This can build rapport among your students fostering a sense of community while helping students feel less isolated. Students may feel safer speaking among their peers. In addition, working in pairs or groups gives students more opportunities to practice speaking and understanding skills.
Value your students’ first language and culture. Label your classroom in your students’ first language. Display pictures or hang flags that represent your students’ native country. Encourage your students to say some words in their first language. Greet each other in your students’ first language. Talk about your students’ native country or culture. Eat a food from your students’ culture. If your students come from Asia, have them teach you and their peers how to eat with chopsticks or how to draw characters in their language. Display the characters around your classroom.
Have your students be the teacher. Students instructing their peers boost their self-confidence and reinforces their own learning.
Encourage participation. Encourage students to speak, to share their thoughts, and to take risks. This helps build students’ self-confidence.
Get to know your students. Get to know who your students are beyond the classroom and show genuine interest with who they are as people and not just as students.
Respect and care about your students. The way you talk to your students should reflect respect and concern. Students know if you genuinely care about them, their language learning, and who they are.