An Investigation On Foreign Language Anxiety Of Elementary School Students In Beijing

In language learning, researchers pay more attention to learners' emotional states. Among emotional factors, language anxiety might be a most emotional problem in language learning. Studies about language anxiety ranged from investigation of possible sources of language anxiety to types and measurements of language anxiety, and how anxiety functions in language learning and so on. However, most researchers focus on adults and assume that foreign language anxiety is more relevant to language learning among adults. Over the past years, few of the researchers paid attention to primary school level.The present study was undertaken to detect the language anxiety with a main focus on young children in some elementary schools. The differences of language anxiety between the third-grade and sixth-grade students in some elementary schools, the school differences and the gender differences, the correlation between the students' language anxiety level and English final grade were discussed based on the data collected from the questionnaire responses of 477 students of six elementary schools in Beijing City. Furthermore, in order to find out the sources and factors that arouse their English learning anxiety in and outside the classroom, multiple instruments were employed: multiple choice questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. The results demonstrate that: 1) four significant differences among the 20 items between the third-grade and sixth-grade students were found in the FLCASPS questionnaire, 2) The language level of the male students are obviously higher than that of female students and students language anxiety level of Normal schools is higher than that of Key school,3) there is a negative correlation between language anxiety and final course grade for the sixth graders, but such negative relationship does not exist for the third graders in the study, 4) compared with parents' attitude of the third-grade students, the parents of sixth graders pay more attention to their English learning and provide more English learning chances out of the classroom and comparedwith the third-grade students, more sixth graders hope the teacher uses English to have classes.Several implications and suggestions are provided based on the results, including theimportance of the language teachers' awareness of the existing anxiety in the elementary students; the necessity of the language teachers' understanding the difference of language anxiety between the third-grade students and the sixth-grade students; using the less anxiety-provoking grouping of learning activities, such as whole-class activity.