An Empirical Research On The Correlation Between English Speaking Self-concept(ESSC) And English Classroom Speaking Anxiety(ECSA) Of Senior High School Students

The self-concept and anxiety are two different psychological concepts in educational psychology.Many studies have been conducted regarding these two elements,which mainly focus attention to the influence of them to academic achievement and their interdependent relationship on each other.Therefore,this study is to testify the correlation between these two elements from the perspective of foreign language speaking facet.It investigates the English speaking self-concept?ESSC?and English classroom speaking anxiety?ECSA?,and their correlation on 300 senior high school students in China to mainly answer the following three questions: 1.What is the ESSC level of senior high school students? 2.What is the ECSA level of senior high school students? 3.What is the correlation between ESSC and ECSA?The findings are as follows:?1?Generally,students had a lower level of ESSC?M=3.54,SD=1.15?.Concerning the two dimensions,students' pronunciation self-concept?M=3.61,SD=1.17?was higher than speaking self-concept?M=3.47,SD=1.21?.?2?Students were experiencing a median level of ECSA?M=4.03,SD=1.05?.Among the four different speaking situational dimensions,students were most anxious when speaking with the teacher?M=4.12,SD=1.13?,and were least anxious when speaking to their partners?M=3.66,SD=1.20?.?3?There was a median but significant negative correlation between ESSC and ECSA,for the correlation coefficients between total scores of English speaking self-concept?TESSC?and total scores of English classroom speaking anxiety?TECSA?were-.423(R_TESSC-TECSA=-0.423,p < 0.01).In detail,the correlation coefficients between speaking self-concept?SSC?and TECSA(R_SSC-TECSA=-0.427,p < 0.01)were higher than that of pronunciation self-concept?PSC?and TECSA(R_PSC-TECSA=-0.397,p < 0.01).The correlation coefficients between TESSC and anxiety when speaking to the teacher?ST?were the highest(R_TESSC-ST=-0.425,p < 0.01),between TESSC and anxiety when speaking to the partner?SP?were the lowest(R_TESSC-SP=-0.291,p < 0.01).As to the correlations between the dimensions of ESSC and ECSA,the correlation coefficients between speaking self-concept and anxiety when speaking to the teacher were the highest(R_SSC-ST=-0.422,p < 0.01),between pronunciation self-concept and anxiety when speaking to the partner were the lowest(R_PSC-SP=-0.265,p < 0.01).From the correlation analysis,it was indicated that senior high school students with lower level of ESSC tended to be experiencing the higher level of ECSA.Thus,in the last chapter,some suggestions in English speaking teaching and learning are proposed to decrease the students' feeling of speaking anxiety in English classroom through establishing the positive ESSC: 1)teachers could help students to have a comprehensive understanding to their English speaking abilities;2)teachers could train students with standard pronunciation and give more positive feedbacks in pronunciation teaching;3)planning more pair work activities is helpful to build up students' positive ESSC;4)students should form a correct view to English speaking learning and make right attributions to their speaking performance.