An Investigation Into Ethnic Minority Group Junior High School Students’ English Language Speaking Anxiety

English language speaking anxiety(ELSA)has been shown to be essential in learners’ English oral competence development.A body of research has examined the ELSA of senior high school students and university students,but little is known about the ELSA of multilingual ethnic minority junior high school students,a special group of multilingual learners in China.To fill this gap,this study aimed to unravel ethnic multilingual learners’ profile of ELSA,and whether there were any ELSA differences in terms of demographic variables and whether there were any correlations between their ELSA and some variables.The mixed research method was utilized in this study.574 students from 3 junior high schools in ethnic minority dominated communities in Yunnan province were recruited in this study.An adapted questionnaire was utilized to collect the qualitative data and quantitative data,which was analyzed with the aid of NVivo 12.0 and SPSS26.0 respectively.The major findings suggested that:(1)More than 90% students suffered from moderate or high level of ELSA.The mean of participants’ ELSA was 3.28,which was higher than that of previous studies,indicating that educational system exerted influence on ELSA;(2)There existed significant differences in the students’ ELSA in terms of ethnicity,gender,school,class type,grade and the number of previously spoken languages.With regard to ethnicity differences,Han students had the significantly higher ELSA than Lisu students(p=0.047<0.05)and Hani students(p=0.013<0.05).Yi students had the significantly higher ELSA than Hani students((p=0.050)and Lisu students(p=0.046<0.05).For gender differences,female students were significantly more anxious than male students.School differences revealed that School A(in which Bai,Lisu,and Yi students dominate)had significant lower mean score than School B(in which Yi students dominate)while School B had significant higher mean score than School C(in which Hani students dominate).For the class type differences,the students in experimental class had significantly higher ELSA than those in regular class.The Independent T-test revealed that there was grade differences in terms of ELSA.Students in Grade 9 tended to have significantly higher ELSA than those in Grade 8(p<0.001).The most crucial finding was about the number of previously spoken languages differences,which suggested that those who were quadrilingual had significant higher ELSA than those who were trilingual and bilingual while the trilingual students had significantly higher ELSA than bilingual students.The cultural contexts,competitiveness and the time to practice English might account for the ethnic differences(or school differences),class differences,grade differences(or previously known languages)respectively.Moreover,ELSA was also found to be correlated with gender,grade,the number of previously spoken languages,class type,the motivation to learn English,the motivation to improve English proficiency,the frequency to read newspaper and watch TV,and self-perceived ELSA;(3)The symptoms of students’ ELSA were various from verbal,physical,behavioural and mental symptoms.When they suffered from ELSA,they became forgetful,sweating and having palpitations.In addition,some students were blush,trembling,dizzy.Other students were so nervous to have a headache or stomachache;(4)The sources of their ELSA were concluded to be internal(linguistic knowledge,making mistakes,being forgetful and so on)and external(situational factors,teacher factors,peer factors,and stranger factors).Among these factors which made students the most anxious,teacher’s questioning(N=17)was the most frequently reported,followed by having incorrect pronunciation(N=11)and classmates’ laughter(N=8).This research makes a contribution to a better understanding of ethnic minority group junior high school students’ English learning.Some practical implications for English language learning and teaching in junior high schools are tentatively suggested.The study ends with the limitations and suggestions for future research.