ESL Term:

Affective-Filter Hypothesis

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affective-filter hypothesis:  Krashen argues that comprehensible input is not enough to ensure language acquisition.  Language learners also have to be receptive to that input. When learners are bored, angry, frustrated, nervous, unmotivated or stressed, they may not be receptive to language input and so they 'screen' the input. This screen is referred to as the affective filter.  This suggests that when learners are bored, angry, frustrated, nervous, unmotivated or stressed, they may be unsuccessful at learning a second language. This has very practical implications for language teachers: lower their affective filters. One problem with this hypothesis is the difficulty in determining cause and effect: Are language learners unsuccessful because they are bored, angry, and stressed? Or are language learners bored, angry, and stressed because they are unsuccessful?