A Study On Grade Three Students' Anxiety At High School In Xinxiang

Foreign language anxiety is defined as a distinct complex of self-perception, belief, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom learning arising from the unique of the language learning process (Horwitz et al 1986:128). Foreign language learning is a complicated process that is made of a lot of factors. Whether learners can learn English well depends not only on their intelligence but also on their non-intelligence such as the restriction of their affective factors. Many researches have proved that excessive anxiety is one of the affective factors that have a bad effect on their learning. Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis (AFH) states how affective factors are related to the L2 acquisition process. If the filter is low or weak, the learners'attitude is more conductive to L2. Learning and more input will be absorbed. And if the filter is high or strong, less input will be absorbed.In China, English learning plays a very important role in the whole teaching process. New curriculum clearly states that English teaching should face to all the students, pay close attention to Quality-oriented Education and students'affection, reduce their anxiety of English learning, arouse their interests of English and help them to build their confidence and their sense of achievement to improve their cultural cultivation.Starting from Psychological Humanism'view to the language teaching, the paper states that both affection and cognition are very important factors in the teaching process. The paper introduces the theoretical foundation, namely, the Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, the anxiety from the psychological view, language anxiety, and foreign language anxiety including its definition, measuring, manifestation and classifications, and the research of the relationship between anxiety and learning effect in home and abroad.In the research plan, the author puts forward three questions as follows: (1) Do the grade three students at high school feel anxious? (2) What is the relationship between their anxiety and their grades? (3) What are the causes of their anxiety? Besides, the author refers to Horwitz et al'Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. In order to avoid twisting all the questions of the scale, the author also refers to He Yang's"Talking About the Effective Strategies of Overcoming the Anxiety of the Foreign Language Learning'', which has been translated into Chinese. Then the author uses statistical software to deal with the data. From questionnaire, classroom observation and interviews, the sources causing language anxiety are sought out and discussed. Conclusions have been drawn in this paper as follows: the English learners'language anxiety in grade three at high school is negatively correlated to the achievements of their English learning. Namely, the higher the learner'anxiety is, the lower the learner's language achievement will be, and vice verse. And male students are more anxious than female students in English learning. The sources of anxiety can be drawn from this study as follows: students'fear of the English exam, students'scare of the questions asked by their teachers in the English class, students'seeking to be number one and competition with others , students'timidity and lack of confidence, over-expectation from their parents and teachers and so on.Based on this, the author puts forward the following strategies to reduce grade three students'anxiety in English class at high school in Xinxiang as follows: building up students'confidence of learning English well, helping them take a positive attitude towards English examination, creating relaxing environment in English class, and stimulating students'interests in English.