Middle School Teacher's Behaviors And Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety In China

Looking back on early history of foreign language education at home and abroad, it is clear that the research focus was on the field of cognitive process of language learning. Since the 1960s, researchers and educators began to put their eyes on the effect of affective variables on language acquisition. Many researches show that affective variables are indispensable factors in the process of language learning. Language anxiety is one of the affective variables and ranks high among them. Most researchers believe that language anxiety has a negative effect on learners'foreign language acquisition.There are several sources of learners' foreign language anxiety, one of which is teacher's behavior in the classroom. The research on language anxiety from the perspective of middle school teachers' behavior is a new field, because little research has done on it. In light of importance of the period of junior middle school in the formation of learners'language cognitive structure, it is necessary that we have to do some researches on the effect of teachers' behavior on learners' language learning process. The purpose of this research is to optimize teachers' classroom behavior and reduce the negative effect of anxiety on learners' language learning, and help learners to build language cognitive structure in a successful way.In order to complete this project, the author used qualitative and quantitative research methods, collected the data through questionnaire, interview, classroom observation, and classroom video. The research and analysis of the data collected reveal that language anxiety widely exists among junior middle school students and it has a negative effect on students' foreign language learning. If educators are not able to take some measures such as reforming classroom teaching structure, optimizing their classroom actions, language anxiety rises as learners move on in English learning and even becomes worse. In addition, the research also shows that teacher's misbehavior is the chief and critical source of language anxiety.Three suggestions should be given to junior middle school English teachers. Firstly, English teachers must be aware of the role of teacher's classroom behavior in the mobilization of the enthusiasm of students, and that middle school English teachers should try to optimize their teaching behavior. Secondly, the middle school students must learn how to adjust themselves in different learning context. Lastly, the school and the administration of education should try to create a good learning context for junior middle school students.