A Study On Foreign Language Anxiety Of Rural Middle School Students

Since 1850s, with the development of humanistic psychology, the influence of affective factors on language learning attracts attention from foreign language educators and foreign language scholars. As one of the most important affective variables, foreign language learning anxiety presents the largest obstacle for the success of foreign language learning. Due to the specific characteristics of learning settings at rural areas and personality of students, rural middle school students may experience foreign language learning anxiety with its own characteristics.In the middle of 1980s, Horwitz and his colleagues started the early researches on foreign language anxiety. Since then, many researchers both abroad and at home conducted enormous researches on this phenomenon. However, those previous studies may either be done in the western culture settings, or exclusively focus on college students, while researches on middle school students, especially rural middle school students are extremely rare. Based on surveying on the sampled students from a rural middle school, the present study aims to research on the foreign language anxiety of rural area students.The research questions include the following:(1) What general conditions of foreign language anxiety do rural middle school students experience?(2) Is there any difference for the levels of foreign language anxiety among rural middle school students of different academic achievement?(3) Is there any difference for the levels of foreign language anxiety among rural middle school students of different grades?(4) Is there any difference for the levels of foreign language anxiety between the males and females?(5) Is there any difference for the levels of foreign language anxiety among rural middle school students whose parents' literacy is different?This investigation used a questionnaire, which comprised of the background knowledge of students and the Chinese version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), to explore the foreign language anxiety of 256 students in a rural middle school in Xinxiang, Henan province. Furthermore,18 students among those subjects and 6 teachers were involved in the survey in order to exam empirically the anxiety of the middle school students in rural areas. The collected data were processed statistically by using the SPSS system, and the interviews answers and information collected for parents and the society were summed up for the results.The major findings include the following: (1) Academic achievement of rural middle school students negatively correlate with their foreign language anxiety.(2) Anxiety of rural middle school students from Grade One to Grade Three appears the letter U tendency.(3) Males experience higher level of English learning anxiety.(4) Parents'literacy of rural middle school students negatively correlate with their foreign language anxiety.As a result, some countermeasures, from perspectives of students and teachers as well as support from parents and the society, are offered in the end.As to the significance of the study, the author hopes that the study can provide some evidence for the understanding of anxiety of rural middle school students; the countermeasures and suggestions can be helpful to the teachers, the students, parents and the society.