The Effectiveness Of Metacognitive Strategy Training On Reducing Foreign Language Anxiety Of Higher Vocational College Students

Anxiety as one of the affective factors has been widely proved to be one of the biggest obstacles for foreign language learning. So many researchers were done to find some effective ways to reduce learner's foreign language anxiety. Among them many results indicated that there is significantly negative correlation between foreign language anxiety and metacognitive strategy. Researchers Han Wenli (2005), Xu Xiuqin (2005),Yin Xiaojuan (2006), Zheng Ruizi (2007), Zhao Xuemei (2008), Xu Liyun (2009) involved in such studies. So some researchers suggested that metacognitive strategy training should be used to reduce foreign language anxiety. Xu Liyun chose high school students as subjects to carry out the training and proved its effectiveness. Another researcher Cai Dan (2006) also adopted the metacognitive strategy training to enhance English major students'listening and got some achievements.Compared with students from common universities, higher vocational college students are comparatively weak in not only foreign language learning motivation but also the whole learning level. But there are few relative studies on this group of students. So in this study the researcher selected 123 higher vocational college students as subjects who come from Shanxi vocational and technological college of coal in Shanxi Province, aiming to enhance their foreign language anxiety by the means of metacognitive strategy training. The study uses two instruments:one is Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) designed by Horwitz; the other is Metacognitive Strategies Questionnaire (MSQ) which was widely used by many researchers. Both of the questionnaires have high reliability and validity. Statistical software SPSS 16.0 is used to analyze the quantitative data. The qualitative results are analyzed from students'diaries and interviews, especially from interviews, in order to further testify the quantitative results.In this thesis, all the foreign language anxiety refers to English learning anxiety.This study presents the following questions. What are the characteristics of foreign language anxiety (FLA) experienced by higher vocational college students before and after the metacogntive strategies training? And what are the characteristics of metacognitive strategies adopted by higher vocational college students before and after the training? What changes had happened after the training? Are there any correlation between FLA and MS? Can the training reduce foreign language anxiety?The training lasted for 14 weeks and the results summarize as follows:The FLA experienced by higher vocational college students is very high; The metacoganitive strategies adopted by them are low; The relation of them is highly negative correlation; By the means of the training the students'FLA has greatly reduced; Meanwhile the adoption of MS has improved. Metacognitive strategies training (MST) can not only reduce the students'foreign language anxiety but also improve their awareness of MS so that students learn English more independently and efficiently. As for the MST, the finding provides some feasible suggestions for higher vocational college students and teachers.1) Pay attention to the level of input. Most of higher vocational students have the weak basis in foreign language learning. Teacher's input should rely on what they have known. Only when the input is beyond a little than what students have learned effective input will be produced.2) Selection of teaching material should be based on what they have mastered not on what they should have obtained.3) During teaching process, the material should be from the easy knowledge to the difficult one step by step. Otherwise they can not maintain being active in learning.4) It is necessary to specially pay attention the psychology of higher vocational college students. As their foreign language learning psychology is very fragile. More encouragement and more rewards may help them to form good learning habits.5) Any learning strategies training should be practiced more. Only more practice can promote students'learning.6) For higher vocational college students, the metacognitive strategy training is vitally important in terms of helping them become aware of their cognitive processes, their ability to develop a plan, and their ability to evaluate the effectiveness of what they have learned so as to achieve their goals.7) The importance of instructing higher vocational college students should be emphasized. Their learning process is often more time-consuming, and they need to be patiently dealt with and constantly encouraged. 8) Students should be aware of the importance of metacognitive strategy use. Metacogriitive strategies should be expanded in their study and penetrated into their learning process.9) Teachers should be aware that higher vocational college students lack of metacognitive strategies. CALLA lesson plan model and learning strategy should be combined to employ to help them find shortcut for their learning.