The Impact Of Learning Anxiety On English Proficiency In Ecomigration Areas

Since 1850s, along with the development of humanistic psychology, the influence of affective factors on language learning attracts attention from foreign language educators and scholars. As one of the most important affective variables, foreign language learning anxiety presents the largest obstacle for the success of foreign language learning. Due to the specific characteristics of learning settings in students’ individual differences in ecomigration areas, primary school students there may experience foreign language learning anxiety with their own characteristics. In the middle of 1980s, Horwitz and his colleagues started the early research on foreign language anxiety. Since then, many researchers both abroad and at home conducted enormous research on this phenomenon. However, those previous studies may either be done in the students abroad under the western culture background, or exclusively focus on college students and middle school students, while research on primary school students in ecomigration areas are extremely rare. Based on surveying on the cluster sampled students from Botanical Garden Hui Primary School as a case study in Liangtian town of Yinchuan, the present study aims to look into the impact of learning anxiety on English proficiency in ecomigration areas. The research questions include the followings:· What is the general status of students’English anxiety in Botanical Garden Hui Primary School:towards gender and grade (2Gs)?· What is the correlation between student’s English achievement and English anxiety in Botanical Garden Hui Primary School?· What is the anxiety level if it is correlated to both self-perception and parents’ expectation?· What is the correlation between English anxiety and English classroom environment in Botanical Garden Hui Primary School?This investigation first used the questionnaire one, including the parts: background information of students and the Chinese version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), exploring the foreign language anxiety of 109 students in Botanical Garden Hui Primary School in Liangtian town in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Furthermore,18 students and their parents were involved in this survey are invited to do the questionnaire two and a interview, so that to estimate comprehensively the anxiety of the students; last, the students’ parents will be invited to take another interview. The collected data is processed by using the SPSS (19.0), interviews’ answers are collected from parents and students and then a conclusion comes from these.The major findings include the followings:First, students’ English proficiency is negatively correlated with their foreign language anxiety, students from Grade four to Grade six experience the U Shapes trend anxiety, which is different with the previous research, that is students’ English learning anxiety increases along with their grade going up. Second, boys experience higher level of English learning anxiety than girls, which is opposite with some previous research. Third, parents’ expectation and students’ self-perception have positive correlation with students’ English learning anxiety, in this research, most of parents have poor education background, and they pay less attention to their students’ learning situation, however, parents’ expectation and the students’ self-perception do have great impact on their English learning anxiety. Last, there are some correlation between the foreign language anxiety and some of the dimensions of English classroom environment, exactly in the relationship between teacher and students, classroom order and study burden. As a result, some counter measures from perspectives of students and teachers as well as support from parents and the society are offered.The author hopes this research can make more people pay much attention to anxiety of primary school students in ecomigration areas, the solutions and suggestions can be helpful to the teachers, students, parents as well as the society.