On Foreign Language Anxiety Of Junior College Non-English Majors In China

In recent years, researchers and language instructors have been more and more concerned with affective factors in language learning. It is generally believed that in language learning, affective and cognitive sides are not in opposition to each other. Instead, if they are combined, not only can the success of language learning and teaching be ensured, but also the purpose of educating the whole person will be realized. However, if positive affect lacks, the cognitive domains will not function, either.Anxiety is probably one of the most pervasive affective variables that impedes language learning. And foreign language learning is particularly anxiety-provoking. Therefore, the study on foreign language anxiety is of great significance to the improvement of language learners' performance. In the last three decades, substantial work has been done abroad on this issue and great achievements have been made. But in China, it was not until the late twentieth century that this issue was realized. And in the past few years, some empirical research has been done by using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) devised by Horwitz et al.(1986), which is found to be the most reliable measurement instrument for anxiety up to the present and has been most widely adopted by researchers. However, those studies are mostly targeted at university or graduate students. None has been done on junior college students. And most researchers in China make use of only the quantitative analysis. Therefore, this study is intended to combine both quantitative and qualitative analyses, that is, both the FLCAS and individual interviews, to investigate the level of anxiety of junior college non-English majors in China and hopefully, by analysis of the results of the investigation, effective measures for language teachers to help students alleviate or reduce language anxiety will be explored.