Study Of The Conditions And Causes Of Thai Junior High School Students’ Anxiety Learning Chinese

Since the1980s, Horwitz et al. proposed the foreign language learning anxiety concept. Following this, different scholars in different places at different times researched and explored foreign language learning anxiety. They found that learning anxiety can not be ignored. This paper, based on the research of scholars in China and abroad, does an in-depth analysis of the conditions and causes of Thai middle school students’ anxiety learning Chinese.This study consists of120students at Sadi Angthong school who filled out a survey consisting of personal information, the Chinese Language Classroom Anxiety Scale and the Causes of Chinese Learning Anxiety Scale. The survey was enriched with personal interviews, combined with the use of SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) to conduct a scientific quantitative and qualitative statistical analysis exploring the anxiety of learning Chinese in Thai junior high school students. This study explores personal factors that influence anxiety levels in students, students in different anxiety levels, the anxiety students feel toward the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), as well as the causes of anxiety.The findings of this study related to the student’s anxiety situation can be summed up in two main points. One, their anxiety is widespread. Nearly half of the students have high anxiety scores. Nearly70%of the students have high or middle level anxiety. Two, high-anxiety group students do not want to take the initiative to answer the teacher’s questions. When they do have to speak in class, they feel very anxious. Medium-anxiety students have a high level of test anxiety, but their speaking anxiety is very low.The findings regarding personal factors related to anxiety are as follows. Girls have slightly more anxiety than boys, although gender and anxiety levels do not have much of a relationship. Regarding personality, the extroverted students feel the highest levels of anxiety, while the introverted students have the lowest levels of anxiety. People who claim to be both introverted and extroverted have medium levels of anxiety. In general, the connection between personality and anxiety is not statistically significant. Next, people who perceive themselves as good at Chinese have statistically significant low levels of anxiety, while people who perceive themselves as bad have statistically significant high levels of anxiety. This study also found that student’s self expectations regarding Chinese language learning have no connection to levels of anxiety. Finally, reading and writing anxiety is higher than listening and speaking anxiety.Results of the research on the causes of anxiety in Thailand’s junior high school students are as follows. The Chinese language itself is most often chosen by the students as their main cause of anxiety. The students’ own factors causing anxiety can be listed as follows:being unable to properly evaluate whether their Chinese is right or wrong, having no confidence learning Chinese, easily getting nervous and not having an efficient learning method. The top five reasons least likely to cause anxiety mainly belong to the categories of cultural background, teaching materials, teachers’ teaching methods as well as their own factors. The anxiety caused in the high anxiety group of students is mainly due to teachers’ teaching skills. The anxiety caused in the middle anxiety students is mainly due to teachers’ teaching strategies and the competition between students. The anxiety caused in low anxiety students is mainly due to teaching materials.Finally, on the basis of all of the above conclusions, the author makes recommendations and proposes teaching strategies for Thai junior high school students to lower their learning anxiety.