Psychology Research 06 (2012) 1838—658X

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Psychology Research
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Positive Psychology Strategies for Improving College English

Learning Efficacy in China
Fang ZHAO
School of Foreign Studies, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454003, Henan, P.R.China

KEYWORDS ABSTRACT

Learning efficacy, Positive Psychology, which concerns positive aspects in human nature such as potential
Positive psychology, virtues, excellent qualities, positive ability etc., understands many psychological
Strategies, phenomena in a positive way. It devotes itself to making the life much more significant.
Subjective well-being, This paper first introduces the concept of Positive Psychology, its basic idea and previous
Autonomous learning researches. The paper also seeks to provide some scientific strategies for English teachers
to improve College English learning efficacy in China from the perspective of Positive
Psychology. By using Positive Psychology principles, the strategies include stressing
students’ ability of positive emotional experience to encourage their autonomous learning,
teaching them how to recognize and bring their strengths and potentials into play, giving a
comprehensive and scientific study guide, creating a positive atmosphere in the
environment of English classroom. Applying these strategies in teaching will help students
study English more effectively.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD

1 Introduction

Positive Psychology, one of the new studies in recent years, begins in the field of Psychology in the United States at the end of the
20th century. It is a psychological trend that studies human positive aspects including abilities and virtues by using perfect
psychological experimental methods and measurement means [1]. The new idea has achieved an important turning in psychological
studies. After that, Psychology changes its studies into the most significant or the happiest things in human life from the traditional
studies of the saddest events, which injects new life into the main Psychology focusing consistently on the researches of mental
problems. Those Positive Psychology ideas which represent humanities and time spirit will have great significance on the
improvement of College English learning efficacy in the process of College English language teaching if the College teachers
inculcate the Positive Psychology ideas upon students at the same time that they put emphasis upon students’ practical and
communicative use of English. In that case, building Positive Psychology strategies for improving College English learning efficacy
in China will yield twice the result but only with half the effort. The students certainly enjoy the process of English language
learning.


Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhf@hpu.edu.cn

English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD

DOI: 10. 5503/J. PR. 2012.06.007
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2 Positive Psychologies and Its Basic Idea

Treating human potentials, motivations and abilities with an open and appreciative eye, positive psychology proposes to make a
research on human positive abilities and positive potentials starting with the aspect of “positive”. Positive Psychologists Think about
Positive Psychology, regarding people’s inherent, potential and constructive abilities, virtues and goodness as a starting point, could
read many psychological phenomena of people with a positive attitude to stimulate people’s inside excellent qualities, helping people
maximize their potentials and get a better life[2]. Positive Psychology puts forward its own insights into how to improve the external
environment in order to promote the formation of people’s Positive Psychology.

2.1 Background of positive psychology

Psychology has three major tasks: treatments of the mental or psychological illness; help ordinary people get a happy life; find and
cultivate the talents. But after World War II, Psychology has evolved into a matter that is similar to “Medicine” to remedy people
because of the changes in the social environment and the need for treatment of human body and trauma. With all this, psychological
researches on the positive emotions of people seem to be forgotten [3]. Since the fifty’s and sixty’s of the last century, some
psychological researchers have begun to explore the positive aspects of people, which change the traditional values that tend to
problem-solving. Soon after, studies on the normal people cause the attention of Psychologists with the peace and development of
entire human community. Psychologists Seligman and Csikzentmihlyi first propose the concept of “Positive Psychology”. In 1997,
Seligman used the term “Positive Psychology” when he became the Chairman of APA (American Psychiatric Association).
Afterwards, an increasing number of Psychologists involve themselves in this research field, which gradually forms a movement of
Positive Psychology research [4].

2.2 The basic content of positive psychology

Positive Psychology takes the view that human nature tends to be positive, stressing researches on people’s positive psychological
qualities. Psychology not only deals with damages, defects and harms, it should also be a research on positive abilities and excellent
qualities. It advocates a positive interpretation on the problems, digging the potentials hidden in human beings, emphasizing social
and cultural environment impact on people. It has three major themes of the contents: The first is the positive emotional experience,
which mainly discusses people’s subjective well-being, optimism and other views or feelings of their life. The second is the positive
personality traits, which chiefly focuses on human positive psychological characteristics. Human is taken as a whole that has the
ability of self-management and self-direction including its self-determination, mature defense mechanism, intelligence, creativity and
positive interpersonal relationships. The third is the positive organization system, which mainly studies how to build a positive social
environment, College environment and other relevant systems to make human potentials get full play and in the mean time they
could also have a feeling of being happy [5]. In a certain sense, Positive Psychology reflects the humanistic ideas and makes up for the
functions and missions that Psychology should do.

2.3 The main achievements of positive psychology

Positive Psychology has made remarkable research achievements on positive aspects of human mind. For example, Diener makes a
research on why and when people have the subjective well-being, whether macroscopic conditions make a link with the well-being.
He puts forward that the key to well-being is how a person’s values coordinate between quality of life and the external events [6].
Peterson studies the cultivation way of optimism and its relations with reality and pessimism. He holds that high optimism people
tend to have a better emotion and patience, and thus, they are easier to make success [7]. Fredrick proposes the “Broaden-and-Build”
theory, thinking that certain discrete positive emotions including interest, satisfaction, pleasure, etc., could broaden people’s ability of
instantaneous knowing and doing, and to build and strengthen people’s personal resources [8]. Lyubomirsky compares the happy and
unhappy people only to find that their cognition, judgments, motivations and strategies are different, and these differences are often
automated and not realized. The unhappy people are more sensitive to the information compared by others [9]. There are still many
other research results in Positive Psychology made by Positive Psychologists such as Salovey, Myers, and Steinberg etc.

3 Positive Psychology Strategies for Improving College English Learning

Efficacy

English learning is a required course in Chinese universities; therefore, how to improve the effectiveness of College English learning
is a long-term issue of concern for College English teachers and students. According to cognitive theory of second language
acquisition, the process of language acquisition is the process that students understand the structural change of language knowledge.
The growth of language knowledge represents that the new language knowledge infuses continuously into the old knowledge, forms
new language knowledge structure, and thereby generates the new cognitive structure. It means a process that language knowledge is
automatically applied in the practice from its theory. But, in the course of language teaching, if students learn the language for the use
of language and teachers teach language just for teaching, it will ultimately break away from the humanity background, ignoring
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people’s mental, spiritual and emotional changes in the learning process. Applying Positive Psychology principles to College English
learning and building Positive Psychology strategies for improving students’ learning efficacy proceed mainly from the following
three aspects.

3.1 Improving the ability of students’ positive emotional experience

Positive emotional experience is one of the key to improve the students’ performance in English learning. This research focuses on
the subjective well-being, happiness and other positive emotions. In the learning process, the positive emotion plays a role of
“catalyst” in the development of all aspects for individuals. If a student has a happy, optimistic, satisfied positive emotion, he would
possess an ability of strong self-regulation. He would hold a positive attitude to face the setbacks, difficulties and challenges in the
language learning, increase his enthusiasm and initiative to accept the task of English language learning. Therefore, teachers must
first pay attention to students’ mental health education in the teaching, consciously train students’ ability of positive emotional
experience in the learning, adjust their mentality through language exchanges such as answer questions in class and make positive
evaluations between teachers and students. Generally, those students who have good learning reports or strong learning abilities will
gain more praises because they do well in answering questions, digesting and absorbing classroom contents and fulfilling the tasks.
However, if teachers give an appreciative feedback or evaluation on the new, creative, incomplete, not comprehensive arguments
made by students poor at learning, it would make them get more confidence, superior psychological satisfaction and subjective
well-being. People with high subjective well-being would treat the past learning results with satisfaction, feeling now happily and
face the future with optimism.
College teachers should focus on teaching in guiding students to experience the pleasure brought by English learning, cultivating
positive, optimistic and progressive learning attitudes and value orientation because emotions are invisible, but their roles are
enormous. Positive Psychology holds the view that human well-being can affect each other and pass to others, and the joy of learning,
like the gurgling stream, flows into the soul of each learner. Students are not bystanders in the classroom teaching, but active
participants. In this case, teachers should arrange some proper learning tasks for students, enable students to gain self-confidence and
joy through the successful completion of the task and increase happiness. Overall, the ability of a positive emotional experience in
English learning includes the following three aspects: First of all, joyful feeling of interactive exchanges between teachers and
students; Secondly, the happiness in the mind and body produced in the process of passing on knowledge in a way that students love
to see and hear; Finally, the needs of students’ learning requirements and the cheerful experience of successful practice of knowledge
in real life.

3.2 Providing a comprehensive and scientific study guide

Study guide means that the teachers could actively adjust or use students’ learning conditions and learning background environments
to accurately grasp their individual development. The teachers also could fully dig students’ positive personal qualities and potentials
to choose the most effective learning strategies for different learning styles. The final purpose of all this is to make sure that students
can effectively master the knowledge and skills to form the desired ability to develop good personality traits.
First of all, the teachers must teach students how to conduct the autonomous learning. The ultimate goal of education is to teach
students self-study, that is, the active, conscious, independent learning. This will not only help to improve learning effectiveness, but
also is the basis for individual life-long learning and development. This requires students to give full play to the role of positive
psychological factors in the process of learning English, take their own responsibility for learning initiatively and do decision-making
on all aspects of the relevant studies, including setting learning goals, determining learning pace and content, choosing learning
methods and skills, monitoring learning process, assessing learning results etc. The formation of autonomous learning ability
generally goes through the process of the self-control and activeness from his control and passiveness. Hence, students should take
the initiative to construct the knowledge in the curricular and extracurricular activities.
Secondly, the teachers must pay attention to students’ individual differences. In language teaching, teachers had better do the duties
including: ① knowing students’ existing intellectual development, learning skills and techniques, knowledge reserves, learning styles,
etc.; ② digging students’ positive personal qualities, such as learning interests, learning attitudes, learning motivations, emotional
state, etc.; ③ mastering the students’ memory of English vocabulary and grammar usage to create a file for their learning difficulties
to provide personalized guidance; ④ concerning students’ social factors including family cultural background and professional
background; ⑤ taking into account the students’ emotional experience, emotional control, model personality, etc. In addition,
teachers can also establish a student-centered teaching mode to strengthen cooperation and exchange between teachers and students
through a series of English teaching activities, such as the integration of information technology and the teaching of English
Speaking Course, the combination of traditional classroom teaching and multimedia network technology advantages etc.
Thirdly, the teaching team must put up a service platform for students’ English learning. It plays an important role in building
learning environment and teaching background. Teachers should be stressed that learning guide is only a concept. The specific
strategies can be proved effective only when that concept should be put into the whole learning process. The basic points are: ①
holding the optimistic views towards students. Teachers must believe that every student has a chance of success, even for students
poor at learning because these difficulties can be finally overcome. ② Being good at using principles of Positive Psychology,
teachers strive to develop students’ basic skills and practical language ability and in the meantime to convey to students a belief: the
positive elements are rooted in the minds of human beings when they are born and those really positive, good qualities of human
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nature are hidden in the depths of every heart.

3.3 Creating a positive atmosphere in the environment of English classroom

In the view of Positive Psychology, the surrounding environment significantly affects the human and human experience is gained
from the environment. If teachers want to improve the practical effect of College English learning in China, they should be clear how
to construct optimal conditions to create an effective atmosphere in the environment of English classroom in the teaching process.
First and foremost, there is a need for establishing a harmonious relationship between teachers and students to build a cooperative
context. Teachers try to build a teacher-student relationship full of mutual tolerance, trust, dialogue, inspiration under the
environment of humane education. Students’ self-worth is activated only when teachers respect their students as their master. They
would be able to participate in teaching cooperation interaction activities as co-independents, which is conducive to the promotion of
learning passion. Only in this time, teachers and students realize the equal dialogue of the two parties, breaking the opposition
relation between subjects and objects. Secondly, there is a need for creating a good, positive classroom culture environment including
the establishment and implementation of learning systems. For example, teachers must manage to construct a positive class
atmosphere, give students respect and love, treat students with honesty and equality, create a good psychological atmosphere, and in
particular, put emphasis upon the important role of cultural environment on the formation of the students’ positive personality traits.
Thirdly, there is a need for reasonably using the strategy of “example effect”. College teachers set those students as examples who
have outstanding in academic achievements or have ample development room but somewhat less results. Thus, different students will
produce a higher level of their expectations with the help of power of their own examples. If students learn in such an environment, it
is possible to maximize their potentials and creativity to produce the desire to learn.

4 Conclusions

Preliminary studies of Positive Psychology have a great practical guide for building Positive Psychology in College English teaching
in China, which also shows that improving College English learning efficacy needs not only the language learning and teaching, but
also the human care existing in the learning process. Zhang Houcan, a famous Chinese Psychologist, pointed out that “humane care,
in a sense, is the theme of the 21st century, and the prosperity and development of Psychology is the only way to achieve the humane
care.” The essence and goal of Positive Psychology is to search for human care and human ultimate concern. The paper discusses
how to build Positive Psychology strategies in College English learning from the perspective of Positive Psychology to dig the
students’ potential learning initiative, which makes them, face the pressure, stress and failure encountered in the language learning
more easily. Mastering English language skills and the usage of grammar is only part of English teaching; more important is that
teachers should teach students how to recognize and bring their strengths and potentials into play, how to conduct a comprehensive
and objective interpretation on their learning behavior and results, how to experience the joy of success and the joy of learning, how
to regulate their own emotions and gradually develop an optimistic attitude and noble sentiments. Strategies mentioned here is one of
the positive ways to improve College English learning efficacy.

References

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[2]. KUANG Zhihua, YE Haosheng. Three Trends and Their Comparison in Contemporary Western Psychology. Acta
Psychological Sinica, 2005, 37(5): 702-709. (in Chinese)
[3]. Seligman M E. Csikzentmihlyi M. Positive Psychology: an Introduction. American Psychologist, 2000, 55(1): 5-14.
[4]. CUI Lijuan, ZHANG Gaochan. Review of Positive Psychology. Psychological Science, 2005, 28(2): 402-405 (in Chinese)
[5]. LIU Liquan, XIAO Dongmei. Activeness · Hope · Pleasure · Happiness——the Enlightenment of Positive Psychology for
College Students Education. Academic Forum, 2009 (7): 171-175. (in Chinese)
[6]. Diener E. Subjective Well-being: The Science of Happiness and a Proposal for a National Index. American Psychologist, 2000,
55(1): 34-43.
[7]. Peterson C. The Future of Optimism. American Psychologist, 2000, 55 (1): 44-55.
[8]. Fredrick B. L. The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive Psychology: The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions.
American Psychologist, 2001, 56 (3): 218-226.
[9]. Lyubomirsky S. Why Are Some People Happier Than Others: The Role of Cognitive and Motivational Processes in Well-being.
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