On Junior-middle-school Students’English Learning Anxiety

Oxford contends that among the factors influencing language learning, language anxiety is a highly important factor, no matter whether the setting is informal or formal (59). He is sure that language anxiety harms learners’performance by making learners worried, self-doubted so that they will reduce participation (Oxford,60). Arnold and Brown believe anxiety is most probably the affective factor pervasively obstructing the learning process(8). They believe that language anxiety is related with uneasiness, frustration, tension as well as self-doubt and even desperation, thus results in poor performance (Arnold and Brown,8).As language anxiety influences students’language learning and there is still debate among scholars about the correlation between language anxiety and language achievement, the author would like to conduct a survey to analyze the ELA state of junior-middle-school students and try to find whether there is any correlation between English achievement and ELA. Being aware of this, a research on a sample of143participants of Chengdu Shishi JinCheng Foreign Language School is conducted in the form of questionnaire in order to get students’EL A state and the factors that contribute to ELA, etc. Besides, an interview is held to provide supplementary data to the research. The research is conducted from quantitative and qualitative angles. The quantitative research is based on the questionnaire of FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Scale) which is designed by famous psychologist Horwitz et and is proved of high validity and reliability. The qualitative research is based on the data of second part questionnaire and interview. It is the supplement of the result of quantitative research. The research contents focus on five parts:the degree of students’ELA, the effect ELA plays on English achievement, the sources of ELA and its countermeasures.Through analysis, the author finds:(1) Most participants of Chengdu Shishi JinCheng Foreign Language school have moderate ELA and nearly10%of the participants are highly anxious. Among the participants, male participants are more anxious than female participants.(2)Lower English achievers tend to have higher ELA meanwhile higher English achievers tend to have lower ELA. There does exist negative correlation between English achievement and ELA.(3)There are many factors contributing to ELA, which involve personal and procedural factors. Among the factors that contribute to ELA, lack of self-confidence is the most influential factor for junior-middle-school students. Based on all the collected data, the author gives countermeasures to alleviate students’ELA from the angles of both teachers and students. Hopefully the thesis will help more English teachers and students to realize the debilitating effect that ELA plays in English learning. Meanwhile, more English teachers will be evoked to think about more effective methods to alleviate ELA so that students can learn English more enjoyably.