A Study Of Correlation Between Tolerance Of Ambiguity And Oral English Output Anxiety

Tolerance of ambiguity and anxiety belong to cognition and affection field respectively. It is believed that both of them have influence on English learning. From the perspective of humanistic psychology introduced by Rogers in1970s, the combination of cognition and affection is favorable in foreign language learning. This paper is specially designed to explore the correlation between tolerance of ambiguity in oral output. The author focuses her study on this point, because she believes that for language acquisition, the oral communication is the very top one. In1980s, Hymes’ communicative competence theory was introduced to China which brought about great changes in teaching and learning field. Educators began to attach importance to listening and speaking from then on.We already know that anxiety is one of the variables that will lead to different learning results in English acquisition process. And anxiety especially in oral English output practice plays a key role. Thus, here the study of correlation between tolerance of ambiguity and oral English output anxiety is the focus of the study. Besides, this paper also makes detailed analysis about aspects as follows:the effect tolerance of ambiguity has on oral English output, the effect oral English output anxiety has on oral English output, the correlation between tolerance of ambiguity and oral English output anxiety, the difference between male and female students, between art and science students when speaking of correlation between tolerance of ambiguity and oral English output anxiety. With the help of Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (SLTAS) designed by Ely in1989, Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) based on Horwitz’s version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), and SPSS version19.0, the author get the research results as follows. Firstly, TOA is positively connected with oral score. Based on the students’ answers to the questions, they are divided into three groups with high, medium, and low TOA. More than half of the students fall into the medium TOA group and too much and too low TOA will do no good for oral output from the research.Secondly, oral English output anxiety and oral score are negatively correlated with each other. It is also found in the study that the moderate level of anxiety is favorable in English learning. And too much anxiety and too low anxiety are the ones which should be get rid of.Thirdly, a negative correlation is found between TOA and oral English output anxiety. Thus, a balance state of TOA and anxiety is necessary during oral English output acquisition process.Fourthly, for the female students, the negative correlation between two elements in this paper is much stronger than male students. Differences are carefully analyzed from the aspects of TOA and oral English output anxiety respectively, so as to provide supporting details for the related research in the future.Lastly, the research showed that the negative correlation for art students is much stronger than science students. Also, the author was trying to find related clues from their TOA and oral English output anxiety respectively.