A Study On The Impact Of Anxiety On English Listening Comprehension Of Senior High School Students

Listening works as one of the basic skills in foreign language learning.It is well known that the four skills of foreign language consist of listening skill,speaking skill,reading skill and writing skill.Among the four skills,listening effects the development of students’ integrated language competence.However,in most high schools of China,examination-oriented education system had been working well.Numerous teachers have no alternative but to attach more time and attention to reading classes and vocabulary classes due to the limited teaching time,which leads to a lack of efficient listening practice.Students lack the competence to understand the teachers’ questions,being terrified of listening to English.Consequently,their listening anxiety increases and they perform badly in listening comprehension.It is urgent and indispensable to make a survey concerning students’ anxiety level and seek solutions to decreasing their anxiety level.With the development of humanistic psychology,many scholars stress the urgency to raise awareness of the effects that anxiety makes towards language acquisition.This essay is based on Krashen’s effective filter hypothesis and Maslow’s humanistic psychology.The study was conducted with the aim of exploring the current situation of foreign language listening anxiety of students in a high school of Jiangxi,figuring out efficacious measures to decrease students’ anxiety level and improving their listening comprehension proficiency.It aims to investigate:1)What are the current situation of the students? 2)How does listening anxiety correlate to listening proficiency among high school students? 3)What are the possible causes for foreign language listening anxiety?4)What are the possible solutions to decreasing students’ foreign language listening anxiety?The author distributed 182 questionnaires among 3 classes and took back 158 effective samples.Data concerning students’ listening anxiety questionnaire was collected,the author then analyzed the data with Statistic Package for Social Science(SPSS 26).Moreover,the interviews with students who had different listening anxietylevels and teachers who had taught listening class before were also in progress.To find out effective measures to decrease students’ foreign language listening anxiety,the author also performed teaching experiments between Experiment Group Class 25 and Controlled Group Class 24.Based on the above research,it is found that: 1)At present,most students of Grade 2 in high school have foreign language listening anxiety.2)There is a low negative correlation between foreign language listening and students’ listening proficiency.3)The factors causing the listening anxiety are diverse.4)With the cooperation of students,teachers and schools,students’ listening anxiety can be intervened.