Affective Teaching: A Place for Emotion in Classroom Learning

Abstract

Teaching and learning nearly always take place in a social context. Intellectual growth also brings about changes in the social and emotional facets of both teachers and students. Teaching and learning are greatly affected by the quality of relationships forged between teachers and students. Education aims at ‘humanizing’ people. However, meaningful education only occurs when this task is accomplished collectively, with the help of everyone involved in the process of teaching and learning. A longitudinal action research study conducted at an international college in Asia revealed that the key to successful teaching is to become a ‘caring teacher.’ It was found that a classroom that is adorned with ‘care’ is a place where students love to be for the sake of learning. When ‘care’ was absent, every activity in the classroom became a tedious and difficult task.