The Relationship Between English Self-concept Of Chinese English Learners And Their English Classroom Anxiety

The current study examined the relationship between English classroom anxiety and English self-concept of Chinese English learners and whether this relationship changes across different English learning stages. As much as English self-concept is concerned, the present study focuses on both the general English self-concept and two specific components-English speaking self-concept and English pronunciation self-concept. Researchers have conducted numerous studies on the relationship between these two affective variables and language learning. However, very little research has been done to explore the relationship between anxiety and self-concept, especially in L1-Chinese, L2-English context. The paucity of research on the relationship between these two constructs leaves us an incomplete picture of the nature of affective factors.The study includes a questionnaire research and an interview study. Three groups of subjects, who are at different English learning stages, namely the early elementary stage, the late elementary stage and the intermediate stage, participated in the study. A correlational study and a One-way ANOVA were computed.Statistical analysis of the collected data yields the following findings: Firstly, English self-concept of Chinese English learners is highly negatively correlated with their English classroom anxiety. Secondly, the correlation between these two constructs changes across three stages and it turns out to be the highest in the early elementary stage, declines in the late elementary stage and rises again in the intermediate stage. These findings suggest that English self-concept of Chinese English learners might affect their English classroom anxiety. The change of the correlation between English pronunciation self-concept and English classroom anxiety across three stages lends further support to Wang (2001)'s hypothesis that pronunciation plays a vital role in language learning, especially in the initial stage.