Non-English Majors' English Learning Anxiety And Their Use Of Self-regulatory Strategies

Foreign language learning has gradually aroused people's attention since the 1980s. Many scholars have done in-depth research about foreign language learning and achieved fruitful results. Many of them focus on the factors that influence the foreign language learning efficiency. With the development of humanistic psychology, many researchers find out that learners'affective factors are the important factors that influence foreign language learning efficiency and these affective factors are closely related to each other. Among all of the affective factors, anxiety arouses the most attention; therefore, many researches are done to explore the definition, classification of anxiety and foreign language anxiety, the relationship between foreign language anxiety and foreign language achievement, etc. But self-regulatory strategies to alleviate foreign language anxiety, which are the ultimate goal of all the study of foreign language anxiety, have not received much attention.Anxiety is widely accepted as a kind of abnormal feeling, which is also thought to be mental abnormality. Generally speaking, anxiety is defined as a state of fear and uneasiness caused by the anticipation of something threatening or dangerous. Foreign language learning is like a hard journey and learners have to face different challenges and dangers during the journey. If they want to end the journey successfully, they must figure out the strategies to cope with the challenges and be persistent. So it is normal and understandable for them to be anxious, worried or even lost during the journey and significant for them to be aware of some effective self-regulatory strategies.This paper tries to explore English learning anxiety of Chinese non-English majors and their frequently used self-regulatory strategies. The study uses an English Learning Anxiety Scale (see Appendix1), which is adapted from Horwitz's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (the FLCAS). The FLCAS has been used to examine the subjects'foreign language anxiety by many scholars, thus it is highly reliable and valid. According to the score in the English Learning Anxiety Scale, all of the subjects are divided into high anxiety group, medium anxiety group and low anxiety group. Then the author has a pre-interview with 45 students from different groups to know how the subjects usually self-regulate their anxiety during English learning and their ideas and attitudes towards English learning anxiety. Then a second questionnaire which is designed on the basis of the results of the pre-interview, extensive review of literature and Chen Hong's Questionnaire on Self-regulatory Strategies to ease English Learning Anxiety, is given to the subjects of the study to know their frequently-used self-regulatory strategies to cope with anxiety and explore whether there is any significant difference in use of self-regulatory strategies to cope with English learning anxiety among high anxiety group, medium anxiety group and low anxiety group. After the second questionnaire, a post-interview is conducted with the same subjects to explore the reasons for their use of self-regulatory strategies, their most effective self-regulatory strategies and their suggestions on the reduction of English learning anxiety. Then the author makes a summary of the pre-interview and post-interview and gets some effective self-regulatory strategies; thus makes the study pedagogically significant.