A Correlative Study Of Pupils’Language Anxiety And Class Participation In English Class

With further researches about second language acquisition, anxiety has become a hot topic as an important affective factor. Language anxiety is a kind of complicated psychology that learners have during the process of foreign language learning. It refers to fearful or uneasy state of mind learners experience when they speak in foreign language. On the basis of the particularity of foreign language learning environment in China, class is considered as the main learning place for students. The class interaction and participation is an important way of outputting language and improving learning efficiency. Through the literature review, many researches have been done on language anxiety and class participation, but few on their correlation. What’s more, these correlative analyses are conducted in college and middle school. Therefore, the author takes pupils as subjects to investigate the relationship between these two variables.The thesis adopts quantitative and qualitative approaches by using the means of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), Questionnaire of Class Participation (QOCP) and face to face interview. The subjects in this paper are made up of60pupils from New Outlook training school. The collected data are analyzed by SPSS. The following are main findings:1) Language anxiety exists in primary English class, but the degree of the students’ anxiety is relatively not high. The difference of foreign language anxiety is not obvious in genders and grades. Based on the analysis of anxiety sources, pupils’anxiety is mainly from communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation.2) Students in English class are active in taking part in the class activities and their participation frequency is very high. The participation frequency is not influenced by genders. However, pupils’participation frequency increases with their growth. Among the different activities of participation, pupils’participation frequency in affective and behavioral activities is higher than that in cognitive activities.3) Language anxiety level and class participation frequency are negatively correlated, but their relation is not a simple line relation. The students in middle anxiety are the most active in involving themselves in the activities. In addition, negative attitude towards English and fear of negative evaluation are the main factors leading to low participation frequency.This paper confirms the negative correlation between language anxiety and class participation. Besides, the author puts forward some measures to lower class language anxiety, hoping to be meaningful for primary English teaching.