A Study Of English Speaking Anxiety And Self-regulatory Strategies

Speaking is considered to be the most anxiety-provoking language skill for foreign language learners,thus many scholars have attempted to explore how to reduce learners’ foreign language speaking anxiety.Most of the previous studies just took foreign language speaking anxiety as the research question and focused on how to reduce it effectively,however,few scholars discussed the methods of coping with foreign language anxiety from the perspective of self-regulation.Foreign language learning is a process that emphasizes the interaction between teachers and students,thus affective factors are important cognitive representation in the learning process.Humanistic Learning theory emphasizes that affective factors play an important role in learning.It advocates that “significant learning” is the essence of learning.And teaching should be learner-centered.Teachers should act as facilitators to help students learn how to learn and cultivate their learning autonomy.Based on Humanistic learning theory,this paper aims to investigate the current situation of the first-year college English majors’ English speaking anxiety and their application of self-regulatory strategies to reducing it.The participants in this research are 128 first-year English majors who are enrolled in an ordinary college in Wuhan.This paper aims to explore the following research questions: 1)What is the current situation of English speaking anxiety among the first-year college English majors? Is there any relationship between English speaking anxiety and oral English performance? 2)What kind of self-regulatory strategies are employed by the first-year English majors to cope with English speaking anxiety? 3)Is there any difference in the use of self-regulatory strategies among students at different levels of English speaking anxiety?Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed in this research.They are semi-structured interview and questionnaire respectively.First,20 students were randomly selected for a semi-structured interview.Then,the questionnaire designed by Professor Xu Jinfen and Kou Jinnan was taken as the prototype and it was modified according to the results of the interview.Thus,“Spoken English Anxiety Self-Regulatory Strategies Questionnaire” was developed.At the same time,the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale designed by Horwitz et al.was modified to develop “Spoken English Anxiety Scale”.After testing,the two questionnaires have good reliability and validity.SPSS 22 was applied to analyze the data collected by the two questionnaires.Descriptive statistics are employed to present the general situation of English speaking anxiety and the use of self-regulatory strategies.One-way ANOVA and correlation analysis are applied to analyzing the relationship between English speaking anxiety and oral English achievement,the differences in the use of self-regulatory strategies among the first-year college English majors at different English speaking anxiety levels,and the relationship between English speaking anxiety and the usage of self-regulatory strategies.The major findings of the research are as follows: 1)English speaking anxiety widely existed among the first-year English majors and the overall English speaking anxiety is at the medium level.Besides,there is a medium negative correlation between English speaking anxiety and oral English performance.Moreover,the major reasons of English speaking anxiety are: poor oral English,lack of self-confidence,social anxiety and competitiveness.2)The first-year English majors tend to apply four self-regulatory strategies to reducing their English speaking anxiety.According to the frequency of use,they are Self-efficacy Enhancement Strategy,Distraction Strategy,Action Strategy,and Avoidance Strategy.On the whole,the application of self-regulatory strategies is at the medium level,among which the use of Self-efficacy Enhancement Strategy is at the high level,the use of Distraction Strategy and Action Strategy are at the medium level,and the use of Avoidance Strategy is at the low level.3)There are no significant differences in the use of overall strategies and Self-efficacy Enhancement strategy among students at high,medium,and low anxiety levels;there are significant differences in the use of Distraction Strategy: students with low anxiety are more likely to use it than those with high levels of anxiety;as for Action Strategy,English speaking anxiety is negatively correlated with the employment of this strategy,that is,students at higher anxiety levels use this strategy less frequently;in terms of Avoidance Strategy,English speaking anxiety is positively correlated with the application of this strategy,namely students at higher levels of anxiety will use this strategy more frequently.The research findings not only help students deal with English speaking anxiety more scientifically and effectively,but also provide a new perspective for the future research on English speaking anxiety.