An Empirical Study On Foreign Language Writing Anxiety In The Context Of College English Teaching At Different Levels

Since 2003, the Ministry of Education has started a new reform of college English teaching, and highlighted the principle of providing different guidance for different groups of students according to College English Curriculum Requirements. Thus, many universities have adopted college English teaching at different levels. Many researchers have investigated students'English learning in this context, but few have given enough thought to affective factors which may exert quite different influences on students at different levels. Writing anxiety, as one of the affective factors, has drawn more attention these years. Krashen's study showed that writing in foreign/second language provokes more anxiety than using one's native language. Other researches have proved that writing anxiety was one of the factors affecting students'writing performance. However, researches on foreign language writing anxiety with Chinese students have been rare. Particularly, there exist no studies about foreign language writing anxiety of Chinese college students in the context of college English teaching at different levels.The present study, supported by Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis and Tobias Theory, employs Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) made by Cheng to conduct the research on students'English writing anxiety with 251 non-English major undergraduates from Chongqing University as the subjects. In quantitative study, the following three questions are under discussion: (1) Do Chinese non-English major undergraduates at respectively the basic (Level 1), intermediate (Level 2) and advanced (Level 3) levels experience anxiety when writing English compositions? If yes, where is their writing anxiety embodied? (2) Are there significant differences in writing anxiety among the students of all the three levels? (3) What is the relationship between writing anxiety and writing achievement of the students at each level? And the qualitative study is conducted for the purpose of exploring the potential sources of students'English writing anxiety, and the pedagogical suggestions in light of their anxiety conditions, different learning habits, attitudes, and strategies.The results show that (1) the Chinese EFL students at three levels experience moderate degree of writing anxiety, which is mainly reflected in their avoidance behavior; (2) there are only significant differences in writing anxiety between the students at Level 1 and Level 3, with no such differences found between Level 1 and Level 2, or Level 2 and Level 3. However, the differences in writing scores of the students at different levels show statistical significance; (3) foreign language writing anxiety is negatively correlated with students'writing achievement.The present study is helpful to deepen the understanding of foreign language writing anxiety under the circumstance of teaching English at different levels in China, and provides some suggestions to alleviate writing anxiety and improve writing proficiency.