Effects Of Anxiety On Senior One Students' English Learning And Study Of Countermeasures

People have been searching for better approaches to the foreign language learning, but in the past decades of years, the attention was focused on how to improve the teaching methods of teachers, and the importance of the students - the main body of the teaching-learning process was ignored. From late 1950s to 1960s, partly due to the impact from the humanistic psychology and improved notion of education, some foreign researchers and experts began to draw their attentions to the study of multiple variables that influence language learning. Of course affective variables attracted more attention and interest from the researchers. Anxiety is considered as one of the key affective variables. Some of the strongest correlations between affective factors and achievements involve anxiety.Since 1970s, researchers and experts from abroad have been conducting research on language anxiety, which usually happens when learners are expected to perform in a foreign or second language situation and it is usually believed to rank the top in the factors that affect foreign language learning. Based a large amount of studies they find that anxiety twisted with other affective variables, such as attitude, motivation, depression, self–perceived proficiency and self-esteem influences foreign language or second language acquisition. They have done a lot of research on how anxiety influences foreign language or second language learning. Most of the previous studies have shown that foreign language anxiety can be distinguished from other types of anxiety. And also they have done research to measure the level of anxiety, for example, the FLCAS conducted by Horwitz.In China, though the studies in this domain start late, researchers and experts have taken the advantage of the theories and achievements of language anxiety in western countries for reference. A lot of studies on the language anxiety have been conducted, but the subjects of the studies mostly come from the graduates or undergraduates. Few studies concern about the impact of foreign language anxiety on the achievement of students from senior high school.The author of the thesis firstly sums up the previous studies on the Affective Variables, including the definitions and related research on the Affective Variables, the definitions of the foreign language anxiety and its related studies. Then the author analyzes the causes of the foreign language anxiety and tries to give some advice to teachers. Inspired by the western fruitful research in foreign language anxiety, the author attempts to conduct an investigation on the effects of foreign language anxiety on Senior One students'English language learning in the Chinese context, to know about the situations of Senior One students'foreign language anxiety and its'effects on Senior One students'English language learning so as to improve English language learning and decrease foreign language anxiety.Secondly by means of questionnaires, students'learning diaries and interviews, the author does a research on 112 students coming from Senior One in Yi MianPo middle school about their English classroom foreign language anxiety and finds that there does exist foreign language anxiety in EFL class room and it interferes with their language learning seriously. Through the analysis of the data the author finds that foreign language anxiety mainly comes from the family background, the students'language learning experience including the instructor, the teaching methods and some other factors. Then the author examines the sources leading to the students'foreign language anxiety. After probing the learners'different manifestations of foreign language anxiety, the author gives some teaching strategies to relax foreign language anxiety and enhance the efficiency of teaching process. The thesis ends up with a summary of the investigation, implications, the limitations of the study and suggestions for the future study.The author hopes that the thesis is aimed at applying the theoretical results to English teaching and learning in senior high school can help create a low anxiety and relaxed classroom environment and provide useful suggestions for the teachers.