A Study On The Correlation Between Anxiety And Speaking English As A Second Language Among International Students In American University

Language Anxiety is a recurrent theme in the literature of language educational theory and a consistent difficulty for both educators and students. It is a difficult and often very subjective phenomenon to track. There is a very large and abiding collection of work on the subject and some significant progress has been made. Based on previous progress this study sought to look in to issues concerning the conceptualization of second language speaking anxiety, the relationship between language anxiety and second language oral performance, and the major stressors reported by the subjects. At the end, fairly clear recommendations were made according to both the findings of this and previous studies. The subjects(N=82) in this study were taking summer session language courses in Program of Intensive English (PIE) prior to enrolling in the university in Arizona of United States. Modified Second Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (SLSAS) was developed for this study. This scale was based on Woodrow's (2006) new contribution to this area. It was proved to be more reliable and scientific than previous measurements. It takes second language environment into account. Also dual conceptualization of anxiety within and out-of-class classroom was applied to the study. Correlation analysis was used to find out the relationship between anxiety and second language oral performance. Reported stressors were investigated through interviews with some of the subjects. The SLSAS indicated that dual-conceptualization does exist and subjects do suffer from both kinds of anxieties. The correlation analysis results are consistent with previous findings that anxiety and oral performance is negatively related. Correlation analysis between anxiety within sub-scale ethnicity and their oral performance was also computed. It showed that anxiety tended to affect subjects from Confucian Heritage Societies (CHS) with Chinese being the majority more than other ethnicity groups. The most reported stressors are performing in front of classmates and speaking to native speakers. The study is supposed to be beneficial to both students and teachers in China since it examine this recurrent topic from a new perspective rather than conventional ways. It will also inspire more researchers to look into theses related topics.