An Empirical Study Of The Students’ Anxiety In College English Listening Teaching Class

Listening is a very important part in English teaching. However, according to relevant research on college English listening class, listening has been generally ignored by both the teachers and students in current college English listening teaching, which has become weakness for students. As for the reasons, there are many factors which are responsible for that issue. Previous studies on college English listening teaching mostly focused on teaching methods. With the development of humanistic psychology in the late20th century, people realized that the developments of both emotion and intellect are equally important, and that teaching activities must be students-centered, paying more attention to the individual learner’s emotional and psychological needs. College English listening teaching is easily influenced by the students’emotional factors, especially the anxiety, which would hinder the input and output of language, consequently affecting language learning and communication negatively.With the continuous development of foreign language learning research, many experts and scholars launched studies of language anxiety. Much research show that anxiety is a common problem of foreign language learners, and has brought a lot of obstacles for them to acquire various language skills (Horwitz.E.K,1986; Macintyre and Gardner,1989; etc). Anxiety is an unpleasant emotional state or condition characterized by the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry, and by activation or arousal of the autonomic nervous system. And language anxiety is a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process. Language anxiety and acquiring of language skills are closely related. So to research the status and reasons of language anxiety and the ways to eliminate the student’s anxiety becomes quite meaningful.The Chinese researchers have assimilated the beneficial theories and research abroad and done much research on anxiety of Chinese students in English learning. However, these studies mainly focus on domain-general anxiety while domain-specific anxiety is rarely involved, particularly English listening anxiety. Though some scholars have conducted some studies on the factors influencing anxiety, the research is too general. So it is important and valuable to investigate and find the factors that lead to the listening learning anxiety to solve the anxiety problem in English learning. Based on the previous research, the present study makes research on the present situation of non-English majors’listening learning anxiety, in order to explore the relationship between non-English majors’ listening learning anxiety and relative influencing factors, which will provide theoretical and statistical evidence and make some tentative suggestions for finding and solving the crucial problems between teaching and learning in listening.The thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter One is the introduction to the present study, including the background, purpose, significance and the overview of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review which deals with the previous research of listening, anxiety, foreign language anxiety and foreign language listening anxiety both at home and abroad.Chapter Three is the theoretical basis for present study. It introduces the concepts and classification of listening, anxiety and listening anxiety. It also illustrates the theoretical background for the design of the English Listening Anxiety Scale (ELAS) which will be adopted and introduced at present study.Chapter Four describes the research design including the research questions, subjects, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, data analysis methods, data discussions and the findings and results of the present study. At the very beginning, two listening proficiency tests of CET-4of June2011and June2012were administrated to89freshmen majoring in Exploration Technology and Engineering from Yangtze University College of Technology and Engineering. In order to improve the validity and reliability of the data, students were tested twice in two regular listening classes, and then the author recorded the average score of the two tests which was adopted in the latter analysis. After that, a survey on the students’ listening anxiety was conducted by means of interview and questionnaires. Referring to the questionnaires constructed by experts, the author designed the English Listening Anxiety Scale (ELAS) to explore the subjects’ listening anxiety. Data collected by these two instruments were computerized and analyzed with the software SPSS13.0. The present situation of students listening learning anxiety and negative correlation between students’ listening anxiety and listening proficiency were clearly shown and understood by applying methods of descriptive statistics analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and frequency analysis in the present study. Finally,20students, who gained higher scores in English listening anxiety questionnaires, were chosen to join in the interview so as to find out what factors contributed to the students’ listening anxiety, the conclusion of the present study being drawn.The main findings are as follows. Firstly, a widely existing listening anxiety was discovered among89freshmen majoring in Exploration Technology and Engineering through descriptive statistics analysis of the English Listening Anxiety Scale. Secondly, the average score of the two tests, combined with the analysis of the results of the questionnaire questions demonstrates a negative correlation between students’listening anxiety and listening proficiency, i.e. the higher scale of listening anxiety is, the lower the listening proficiency will be. Thirdly,20students, who gained higher scores in English listening anxiety questionnaires, were chosen to join in the interview so as to find out what factors contributed to the students’listening anxiety. Based upon the interview to the students, there are many factors causing students’listening anxiety which can be summarized into five aspects:teachers’teaching methods; student’s negative self-evaluation, lack of confidence, goal for learning and listening strategies as well as poor English; improper listening materials; tense learning atmosphere; test and negative evaluation. Finally, based on the five factors and the results of the interview, five relevant measures are put forward to reduce the students’listening anxiety in terms of teaching methods, students’effort, selection of the listening materials, cultivation of a relaxing listening class and modification attitudes towards test and negative evaluation.Chapter Five provides some approaches to reducing the students’anxiety in listening learning. Teachers should improve their teaching ability and methods. And the students should develop self-confidence, make realistic goal to pay effort in listening learning and focus on the development of listening strategies. Besides, interesting, adapting to learner’s English level and various types of listening materials should be provided for students and the cooperative learning atmosphere is very helpful for them. The attitudes towards tests and negative evaluation should be modified as well.The last chapter is conclusions which conclude the findings briefly, point out the limitations of the present study and make recommendation for the further research.