English Speaking Anxiety In Non-english Major Postgraduates A Case Study In Shaanxi Normal University

Since the1970s, researchers in second language acquisition focus on thelearner’s individual difference, because the foreign language learners present a bigdifference as a result of a same studying process. Therefore, they pay attention tolearner’s affective variables, and find that the foreign language anxiety is the mostsignificant variables in acquiring. Horwitz et. Al.(1986) defines it as “a distinctcomplex of language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learningprocess”. The phenomenon is common that anxiety is easy to form in the class. So far,researchers in abroad and home did many studies of affective anxiety about collegestudents. However, few researches pay attention to the anxiety of the postgraduates.Therefore, this thesis aims to explore the speaking anxiety in Non-English majorpostgraduates. With ten years of compulsory study for English, quite a lot of themmight be good at English vocabulary and grammar but worse at speaking. Therefore,this thesis plans to analyze the factor of speaking anxiety in their class for suchphenomenon, investigate the potential causes of this situation, and provide advice andstrategies to improve their oral performance.In this thesis, the author studied100non-English major postgraduates whichadmitted in2013of Shaanxi Normal University. In this study, the subjects wereinvited to finish the FLCAS, which is a questionnaire on causes and consequences oftheir anxiety. They also have been interviewed with some questions. The result of theFLCAS indicates that most of the subjects have a high anxious level in their Englishclass. By analyzing the five factors, it is found that the main causes of anxiety includeboth internal factors and external factors, such as the limitation of English proficiency,negative evaluations, non-confidence, negative attitude, and courses in it. From allabove, it is suggested that the improvement of oral performance is largely dependedon reducing students’ anxiety. The thesis also proposes some strategies for teachingand learning. Meanwhile, it also points out some limitations of this research andprovides suggestions for future studies.