An Empirical Study On English Listening Anxienty Among Universty English Majors

The present research aims to investigate the relationship between English listening anxiety and the English listening proficiency among English Majors.Sixty English majors in Xi'an International Studies University are selected as the subjects in the research.And this research adopts one English Listening proficiency Test(TEM-8,March 2016),a modified version of English Listening Anxiety Questionnaire and an interview as the research instruments.With the help of the qualitative and quantitative research methods,the current state of English listening anxiety experienced by English majors is clearly showed,which is based on the subjects' scores in the questionnaires.And then the descriptive analysis and the correlation analysis are applied to explore the correlation between English majors' English listening anxiety and their English listening proficiency.Besides,the anxiety-provoking factors in English listening are summarized.This research also provides ways to reduce English listening anxiety.In this way,this research can shed light on how to deal with English listening anxiety.Through the statistical analysis of the data,which are collected from questionnaires and the interview with 10 participants,the results have revealed that 58 participants of this research suffer from a certain degree of English listening anxiety and the situation varies from person to person.What's more,there exists a significantly negative correlation between English majors' English listening anxiety and their English listening proficiency.Subjects who experience a lower level of anxiety in English listening tend to perform better in the proficiency test.Poor performance can provoke anxiety in their English listening.The most anxiety-provoking factors include: a lack of necessary vocabulary;unfamiliarity with the topic;insufficiency of pronunciation and sound change;the characteristics of English listening materials,such as speed and task complexity.When coping with anxiety in listening,the effective solutions to reducing anxiety are also summarized.They are: making inference by looking through the tasks before listening;skipping over the unfamiliar words during the listening;developing a positive self-confidence;comforting themselves constantly;reminding themselves to concentrate on the sounds.It is suggested that language teachers and learners should be aware of the negative effects anxiety may exert.And some ways of relieving anxiety should be adopted by English learners.