The Effects Of Teachers' Anxiety-Reducing Strategies On College Students' Foreign Language Anxiety

Being one of the most important emotional factors that affect learners' language development,anxiety has attracted broad attention from researchers.Nevertheless,much importance has been attached to the nature of foreign language anxiety,the measurements of foreign language anxiety,and the impact of foreign language anxiety on learners' academic scores,while how to reduce learners' anxiety with systematic approaches has not been discussed thoroughly.Therefore,this thesis seeks to analyze this problem from the instructors' perspective and explore the effects of teachers' anxiety-reducing strategies on learners' foreign language anxiety.A combination of quantitative and qualitative measurements has been applied in this experimental study,with the aim of investigating the effects of instructors' implementation of anxiety reducing strategies on college students' foreign language anxiety in China.The experiment is conducted on a total of 67 sophomore students who work on a double degree in English.They come from two parallel classes,in which one is selected as the experimental group and the other as the control group.At the beginning of the experiment,the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale is conducted on the subjects in two groups,to decide the students' foreign language anxiety level as well as find out the major source of foreign language anxiety among them.Afterwards,an eight-week experimental treatment is conducted on the experimental group in which subjects are instructed with anxiety-reducing strategies,while those in the control group remain to be instructed with conventional teaching practices.To record the teacher's anxiety-reducing practices during the experimental treatment period,a classroom observation scale is applied twice at the beginning and end of the treatment.In the end of the experiment,the students' foreign language anxiety levels are measured by Foreign Language Classroom Scale again.Besides,six students in the experimental group are selected as interviewees,for the sake of investigating students' attitudes towards teachers' implementation of anxiety-reducing strategies.Statistical analyses(ANOVA and ANCOVA)are used to evaluate the study findings.These findings reveal that no significant difference is found in the foreign language anxiety levels in the two groups before experimental treatment.However,after the experimental intervention,significantly decreased levels of FL anxiety are found among learners in the experimental group compared with increased levels of anxiety among those in the control group.Moreover,the students' responses in the interview show that a majority of the students express their gratitude and support towards the anxiety-reducing strategies.The result indicates that teachers' implementation of anxiety-reducing strategies have a positive effect on learners' foreign anxiety,by lowering their anxiety levels and enhancing their self confidence.