A Study On Art Students’ English Classroom Learning Anxiety

In the past three decades, there have been many researches into the Foreign Language Learning Anxiety. And a great variety of researches report that the Foreign Language Learning Anxiety is the main factor that influences the foreign language learning. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety in English learning is largely related to teaching methods of listening, speaking, reading and writing and the teachers’attitude to students in English classroom. Appropriate English classroom teaching methods can largely decrease the anxiety in English study by adapting students to learning English, while other inappropriate English classroom teaching methods often make students generate classroom anxiety. Students who have medium or high English learning anxiety degree have a much worse study effect than those who in low anxiety degree, which is especially true in art students. There are some ubiquitous problems in art students, such as poor basic knowledge of English for a long time and the learning attitude toward English. Why are art students poor in English ability? Because the scores of the university entrance exam of art students’are much lower than those of other majors. The art students also put little time and energy into English learning. Because of the characteristics of art major, they pay more attention to the practical activities in the syllabus. Considering those aspects, we suggest that students, especially art students, should treat English learning anxiety in a relaxed attitude, for moderate anxiety is helpful to improve the result of English study. Strengthening the communications between students and teachers will help the students who have unstable emotion decrease their English learning anxiety.Numerous domestic and overseas surveys focus on the general universities and colleges. However, scholars have never studied the situation of art students, the special educational group. Their special characteristics determine their different learning features and different needs in learning English. Art students have poor Basic English knowledge. The results are caused by many factors. This paper aims at analyzing the relevance between various anxiety degrees in English learning and English classroom teaching effect according to statistics of art students’English learning anxiety. Besides, it also analyzes their relations with English learning anxiety. The study results indicate the relation between English classroom teaching achievements and anxiety is obvious. English classroom learning anxiety and classroom teaching methods have a significantly negative correlation. Therefore, in order to improve classroom teaching methods, it is necessary to study the relationship between anxiety and English teaching methods. Based on statistic analysis of the relevance of art students’gender to English learning anxiety, the author finds out that gender and English learning anxiety are obviously correlated for art students. Moreover, the way of teachers’prelection also affects students’class anxieties greatly. Therefore, the author emphatically discusses methods of lessening English learning anxiety from these aspects. The purpose of this paper is briefly review the sources of English classroom learning anxiety and discusses ways to lower art students’English classroom learning anxiety, which in turn will lead to more art students’ engagement in learning English. Although the discussion will focus on the English classroom, many of the ideas expressed will be helpful in creating a "culture of caring" in any classroom in college.The research in the paper is managed on the basis of questionnaire. The participants in the study are150freshmen majoring in art (88males and62females) at Nanjing Art College at Nanjing. The questionnaire is based on Horwitz et al’s FLCAS (foreign language classroom anxiety scale)(1986), in order to understand their English language classroom anxiety level. The author has classified FLCAS by Horwitz et al into three components:communication apprehension, test anxiety, fears of negative evaluation. Because the subjects are art students, some questions have been deleted (item5,6,11,12,16,17,22,25,26,28,30, and32). Data of these three components is analyzed with the aid of SPSS.