Language Anxiety And English Learning

Since the 1980s, it has been realized that the success of second language acquisition is affected largely by learners' affective factors. Krashen (1985) suggests in his Affective Filter Hypothesis that learners are distracted by affective factors in the language learning process. Among the affective variables, anxiety is the most crucial one.However, many previous researches in foreign language learning anxiety haven't come to any unanimous conclusion toward the effects of language anxiety. Horwitz (1986) attributed such inconclusive results of previous researches to the lack of a reliable and valid measure of anxiety specific to language learning, and developed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) in order to cater for this specific need to measure foreign language anxiety. Ever since its first appearance, the FLCAS has caught the attention of many researchers and language teachers. It has been examined from different angles, such as its reliability and validity, its theoretical construct, and its effect on different language skills (Aida, 1994;Ganschow & Spark, 1996;Horwitz, 1986;Trylong 1987;Young, 1986).Although, the scale is influential in western countries, it has not received adequate attention in China. Recently, many researches have been carried out in this field, which mainly concerns the introduction of the FLCAS, and some quantitative studies also appeared in the southeast areas of China. But the subjects of most these studies are limited in only language learners at one learning stage.The author, with the consideration of testing the effect of language anxiety by using the FLCAS in Chinese context, especially in the northwest areas, conducted a study to compare foreign language anxiety between middle school students and college students. The study includes a questionnaire research and an interview study. 336 subjects from three middle schools and 306 subjects from three colleges in Lanzhou participated in the questionnaire research and 36 subjects of high and low anxiety groups and 9 teachers who are then teaching these subjects took part in the interview study. The grades of three English exams for all subjects were collected and the average grades were computed as the measurement of their language achievement. The correlation coefficients between the FLCAS scores of all subjects and their average grades were computed to test the effect of language anxiety. A one-wayANOVAwas run to further compare mean differences among different anxiety groups. Finally, inter-group comparison was made to compare the manifestations and effects of language anxiety at different learning stages.The results of the present study confirmed the debilitating effects of language anxiety on Chinese EFL students' language performance. The author found that students in both groups do experience different levels of language anxiety and the manifestations of language anxiety in both groups differ greatly from each other. Data analysis shows that middle school students feel most anxious during a language test while college students appear to fear negative evaluation. Students in both groups have the similar degree of communication apprehension.This paper provides both quantitative and qualitative data, which may be helpful for Chinese language instructors and researchers to raise awareness of the negative role that language anxiety plays in EFL classroom. The recognized potential sources of anxiety in this study will be warning signals for English teaching and learning in Chinese context. The significance of the present study lies in how to help language teachers adopt effective methods to improve students' language performance by taking active and efficient measures in a Chinese context to overcome harmful emotional experiences that may impede language achievement.