The Role Of A Teacher In Minimizing The Learners' Anxiety In English Classrooms

Since 1970s, the focus of second language acquisition has shifted from the way that teachers teach to the way that learners learn. It is more and more realized that the success of second language acquisition depends largely on the learner him/herself. Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis(1985) suggests that learners are distracted by affective factors in language learning process. A large number of studies show that anxiety is possibly the most pervasive obstruction in second/foreign language learning. In view of this situation and the complexity of affective factors, this thesis aims at appealing for people's attention to one of the most pervasive factors--anxiety. As the title suggests, in this paper the author intends to focus on anxiety in foreign language classroom context. Inspired by the previous research, she attempts to carry out the present study with two language tests, three questionnaires and classroom observations and interviews to make a full understanding of foreign language anxiety encountered by students in senior middle, find out the sources and seek for ways to deal with it with the help of the findings in the literature review and the results of the present study. Language anxiety is fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language. It ranks high among factors influencing language learning. Therefore, it becomes the main concern of this research paper. The main affective factors included in this dissertation are motivation, self-esteem&self-confidence and anxiety. The relationship between students and teachers is also mentioned. The present writer not only explains the factors carefully but also tries to give suggestions on how to bring the positive role of these factors into full play in our teaching. Although "helpful anxiety" or "facilitating anxiety" is still under doubt, the writer agrees with Brown who considers that both too much and too little anxiety may hinder the process of successful second language learning. The experiments on the positive and negative role of anxiety demonstrate that an appropriate amount of tension can make the students attentive in learning a foreign language. From the questionnaires on students' language anxiety, the writer finds out some basic causes leading to their anxiety in foreign language learning. They are the fear of negative evaluation and the lack of comprehensive input and of ambiguity tolerance. Here are some proposals for diminishing language anxiety: empathizing with the learners, offering comprehensible input and creating lively atmosphere and build up harmonious relations between teachers and students in order to provide non-threatening environment; in addition to these, Changing teachers' role and beliefs and making students recognize their anxiety also contribute to the reduction of anxiety in classroom. The non-threatening environment in class 3 in the observation are helpful to reduce students' anxiety obviously because of its contributions to improving the overall climate of the classroom and its potential for providing supportive and more opportunities for learners to use the language. The author suggests that affective factors should be of vital importance in language teaching. Both the second language teachers and students should be sufficiently aware of the above affective factors in second language acquisition and avoid of building up high affective barriers, which would prevent the students from learning the target language. We should try to create association of positive affect towards the second language and its speakers as well as towards the learning activities involved. What's more, there are still many problems to be solved in the affective domain.