Correlation Between Foreign Language Anxiety And Metacognitive Strategies

Many previous studies show that foreign language anxiety has negative effects on language learning in most cases. By contrast, metacognitive strategies are significant for the successful language learning. Most previous studies on foreign language anxiety focus on the field of learner's affective factors to find out ways in reducing it, such as from the perspective of its relationship with attitudes, motivation, and self-esteem, but the results are not so desirable. The present study attempts to explore how to reduce anxiety from the perspective of its relationship with metacognitive strategies, to identify the important role of metacognitive strategies in reducing anxiety with the help of correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, etc. The study results show that metacognitive strategies enable learners to take the responsibility of learning, and to become independent in dealing with the individual learning problems, which help to reduce anxiety. Therefore, the implication drawn from this study stresses the importance of metacognitive strategy training, which sheds some light on strategies-based instruction.The whole thesis consists of four chapters.Chapter One introduces the background and significance of the present study. The hypothesis is proposed as: there is a significant negative correlation between foreign language anxiety and metacognitive strategies. In other words, metacognitive strategies play a positive role in reducing anxiety. Chapter Two reviews the literature of both foreign language anxiety and metacognitive strategies. It includes: a) definition and classification of foreign language anxiety, and its negative effects on language learning; b) definitions, and classifications of both metacognition and learning strategies; c) the positive effects of metacognitive strategies on language learning. Chapter Three includes research methodology, data analysis and the result discussion which explains the positive effects of metacognitive strategies on reducing (?)nxiety. Chapter Four is the conclusion, and pedagogical implications. The limitations of the (?)resent study and suggestions for future research are also brought forward in this part.