| Since 1970's, the focus of the research in language teaching turns from how the teacher teaches to how the learners learn; from the effectiveness of teaching methods to individual differences and "what goes on in classroom". The affective factors belong to one of the factors which lead to variation in language learning. Language anxiety seems to be one of the affective factors that influence language acquisition negatively. On the other side, learner participation, one of the aspects of classroom interaction, is an important means of language practice and language output. Theoretically and practically, language anxiety is likely to influence learner participation. Hence, how do language anxiety and classroom participation relate to each other? The question is exactly what the research is to focus on.The results of the research are as following:1. The students show some degree of anxiety in the English classroom, especially in speaking. Their anxiety level shows very high correlation with Fl (communication anxiety and the fear of negative evaluation), but comparatively low correlation with F3 (the comfortableness with English native speaker). They show higher degree of anxiety level in F2 (the fear of failing the English class), but lower degree in F4 (the negative attitude toward English class). There is a significant difference of anxiety level between male and female students.2. There is a significant difference between reported participation frequency and willingness, and the reported participation frequency shows a significant difference between male and female students. The participation frequency in group work, full-class activity and teacher-led activity shows significant differences.3. Most students would like to participate in classroom activities by responding to teacher or being nominated by teacher because of nervousness. In group work the students who have moderate anxiety level initiate interaction, while those who are high-anxious or low-anxious just respond. In the full-class communicative activities, the students who are moderately anxious (get 80 to 100 on FLCAS) participate much more than high-anxious or low-anxious students.4. Participation frequency in group work and in full-class activity shows a moderate correlation with the anxiety level, while that in teacher-led activity just weakly correlates with anxiety level. The participation frequency in the three different interaction patterns and anxiety level present a quadratic curve in coordinate axis, which indicates that the moderately anxious students participate in activities most5. The anxiety level shows a moderate and negative correlation with reported participation frequency. The quadratic curve they present in coordinate axis shows that moderately anxious students have the highest participation frequency. Among the five factors of FLCAS, only factor three (the comfortableness in speaking with native speaker) shows a significant and positive correlation with reported participation frequency, while the other four factors are negatively correlated with reported participation frequency.This research aims to examine how the foreign language anxiety influences language learning from the prospective of learning process and learners themselves. The thesis consists of six parts. The first part introduces the definition of language anxiety, the importance of learner participation as well as the purpose and significance of the research. The second part presents the theory foundations of the research. Krashen's filter hypothesis paves the way for the investigation about anxiety, Long and Alwright's interaction hypothesis as well as Swain's output hypothesis support the importance of learner participation, and Vygosky's ZIP theorizes the teacher's scaffolding. The third part gives a critical literature review related to anxiety and participation home and abroad, then introduces an investigation of the effect anxiety has on participation. The fourth part introduces the purpose, procedures, instruments an...
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