A Study Of English Speaking Anxiety Of English Majors Influenced By Traditional Chinese Culture

A great deal of research has been devoted to the study of foreign language anxiety in recent years. Yet very few studies have referred to culture as a causal factor in foreign language anxiety. The present research is a study of Chinese students' English speaking anxiety influenced by traditional Chinese culture.The study was carried out through the combination of the quantitative and qualitative research methods, which began with the hypotheses about the influence of Chinese cultural factors on students' English speaking. The two hypotheses are: 1) Certain elements of traditional Chinese culture will psychologically influence Chinese English majors (freshmen) and cause language anxiety. 2) The major identified factors of affective variables might be negatively correlated with learners' English speaking. A total of 94 English majors (freshmen) from a university in southwestern China participated in the study as the participants of the research for 10 weeks from March 2006 to June 2006.In the quantitative research, the data were collected through two questionnaires: Questionnaireâ… : Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) and Questionnaireâ…¡: Culture-related Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (CRFLAS). Questionnaireâ…¡also includes a part about the demographic information of the participants. The researcher adopted the SPSS11.5 to analyze the collected data and 6 factors were summarized through the process. The 6 factors were closely related to the anxiety level of foreign language learners and confirmed the first hypothesis. A further research was carried out by the researcher, by adopting the method of Pearson's Product Moment Correlation to find out the correlation between anxiety influenced by Chinese cultural factors and Chinese learners' English speaking proficiency. The result of data analysis showed that the participants' speaking anxiety level negatively correlated with their oral English proficiency, which confirmed the second hypothesis.In the qualitative research, the researcher selected 9 students (3 from the high anxiety group, 3 from the moderate anxiety group, and 3 from the low anxiety group respectively) out of the 94 participants according to students' ratings on CRFLAS. They were asked to keep a diary on the experiences and reflection on their English class for 10 weeks from March 2006 to June 2006. 10 students were invited for an interview for further information. With a combined analysis on participants' diary and the interview, the researcher found that the partipants tended to explain their silence in English class with reasons including dissatisfaction about the traditional teaching methodology, teachers' partiality for some students, fear of "losing face", intentionally being humble and modest to protect group harmony, and stress caused by parents' expectation. The results of the qualitative research consist with the quantitative study, which explicitly indicates that foreign language anxiety influenced by Chinese cultural factors negatively correlates with students' English speaking competence.The researcher suggests that foreign language teachers pay more attention to students' affective demands, adopt heuristic teaching methods and avoid using authoritarian expressions or gestures; avoid causing fierce competition in class; communicate with students regularly and discuss teaching methodology among colleague peers. The author also suggests that students take the initiative to overcome foreign language anxiety and discard the false concepts such as fear of losing face, fear of being considered "liking to show off"; transform the idea of competition to the spirit of cooperation; communicate with teachers and parents on their own initiative to reduce the stress caused by the authoritarian figures in Chinese culture.