Study On The Sources And Solutions Of The Anxiety Of Rural Area Senior High School Students In Oral English Learning

Prior to the 1960s, researches on foreign language learning mainly concentrated on intelligence and language aptitude, ignoring the potential contributing affective factors. Since the 1970s, affective variables have been increasingly recognized as significant factors accounting for the different achievements in language learning. In China, the researches on foreign language anxiety as one of the important affective factors have been in process since the late 1990s. The early studies are concerned with theoretical explanation of foreign researches. Later a number of researches are focused on the correlation between oral English and foreign language anxiety.However, there are some flaws in the existing researches. First of all, the research subjects are not comprehensive. Most of the studies,home and abroad, take college students as the subjects, leaving out the high school students, and the researches focused on the rural areas are even rarer. Secondly, the measurement is not so convincing. Most of the researches adopt the Foreign Language Class Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), which is adequately scientific. But anxiety is a complicated affective variable, which can not possibly be precisely calculated numerically. So the multidimensional measurements are expected, such as interview, diary, etc. Thirdly, the research depth is not adequate. Most of the previous researches cease at the point of the measurement of the correlations between anxiety and oral English proficiency. As for the reasons for the anxiety, most of the studies just come up with some possible solutions which come from the researchers'personal teaching experience. And the experiment-based suggestions on the relief of the anxiety rarely exist.The research is conducted in a rural area high school in Shijiazhuang, and 109 subjects from two classes are selected in Senior Grade one. The research tries to explore the sources of the oral English anxiety for the rural area high school students and to propose effective teaching solutions. After the FLCAS survey, oral test, and interview, the results are processed with the SPSS 13.0, and it is shown that the students'oral language anxiety level is high and their oral test performance is poor. Moreover, it is proved that there is an obvious negative correlation between the oral English anxiety and the oral English performance. The possible sources for the students'anxiety when speaking English are analyzed. And the results are: lack of self-confidence,insufficient oral language ability, introverted personality, unfamiliarity of language rules,fear of teachers'negative feedback,etc.According to the research results, the following teaching suggestions are proposed: First, the teaching strategies should be modified to attain a balance between the exam-based requirement and oral communication needs. Second, classroom climate should be made easy and harmonious. Third, cooperative learning should be applied in English class.The teaching suggestions are specified and applied in the teaching of the experimental class. After a 12-week experiment, a post survey,which is the same as the one for the sources of the oral English anxiety in procedure, is administered to justify the efficiency of the teaching suggestions, and the results show that the teaching suggestions can ideally reduce the students'oral English anxiety and improve the oral English proficiency of the students.