A Study Of The Correlation Between English Writing Anxiety And Writing Achievement In Senior High School

Foreign language anxiety was viewed as a unique complex of self-perceptions,beliefs,feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning(Horwitz,1986:125-132).Foreign language writing anxiety has been deemed as a relatively persistent anxiety generated in foreign language writing process.It was usually manifested by impaired thinking activities,increased physiological response and discomfort in behavior(Cheng,2004).There are three categories of foreign language writing anxiety:somatic anxiety,cognitive anxiety and avoidance behavior.Most studies had focused on the relationship between college students’ English writing anxiety and writing achievement.Few studies revealed the causal relationship between the high school students’ English writing anxiety and writing achievement.Therefore,this study explores the relationship between senior high school students’ English writing anxiety and writing achievement in China.There are three main research questions:(1)What is the status quo of English writing anxiety in senior high school?(2)Are there any differences in students’ English writing achievement among students with high-anxiety,moderate-anxiety and low-anxiety? If so,what are they?(3)To what extent does English writing anxiety correlate with English writing achievement in senior high school? And to what extent do the three dimensions of English writing anxiety contribute to the prediction of English writing achievement?135 first-year senior high school students were selected from Ruijin No.3 middle school in Jiangxi province.Descriptive analysis,One-Way ANOVA,correlation analysis and regression analysis were employed to analyze the correlation between English writing anxiety and writing achievement.The following findings were reported: Firstly,senior high school students experienced moderate English writing anxiety in their writing process.Secondly,the difference of English writing achievements was significant among the three groups with high-anxiety,moderate-anxiety and low-anxiety.Thirdly,English writing anxiety and writing achievement were significantly and negatively correlated.Among the three dimensions of writing anxiety,avoidance behavior had the most significant predictive power on English writing achievement.The interview analyses hinted that language proficiency,time for writing,fear of negative evaluation,lack of practice and topic familiarity partly accounted for the variance of learners’ English writing anxiety.