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A Study On Students' English Writing Anxiety In A Senior High School

Posted on:2019-03-10Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y T LiuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2405330542994905Subject:Education
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
As the reform of English teaching and learning emphasizes “student-centered”,students' affective factors have been given more and more attention to.Anxiety is one of these affective variables,which commonly exists among Chinese students.Anxiety is also one of the important factors that influence students' English learning,which has great impact on students' English writing.The gradual increase of English writing score proportion in College Entrance Examination shows the importance of English writing.People realized that English writing is the best reflection of students' comprehensive English level.Language researchers should have dug into students' English writing anxiety.However,most studies on English learning anxiety focused on English speaking anxiety and reading anxiety.The limited research on English writing anxiety was aimed primarily at college students and higher vocational school students.Studies on English writing anxiety of students at a lower educational level were rarely seem.And a few studies focused on the relationship between students' English writing anxiety and their writing performance.In order to investigate the current situations about senior high school students' English writing anxiety,four research questions are formulated:(1)What is the level of student's English writing anxiety in a senior high school?(2)What are the types of students' English writing anxiety in a senior high school?(3)What are the causes of students' English writing anxiety in a senior high school?(4)What is the impact of English writing anxiety on students' writing performance?This study,based on the review of relevant literature on English writing anxiety,had ninety-seven Grade Two students from an ordinary senior high school in Guangdong Province as participants.The present research incorporates quantitative and qualitative methods.Cheng's(2004)Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory(SLWAI)was adopted to analyze the participants' level and types of English writing anxiety.Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory(CWAI)developed by Rezaei & Jafari(2014)was used to analyze the causes of the participants' English writing anxiety.Statistics about the participants' compositions such as writing score,wring length and writing W/T were counted and described.Writing W/T refers to the number of words in one composition dividing the number of T-unit in the same composition,which isused to measure unit length in order to know the syntactic complexity in one composition(Bao,2009).Correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the participants' English writing anxiety and writing performance.Independent samples T-test figured out the differences of writing performance between the participants with high level of English writing anxiety and those with low level of English writing anxiety.Thirteen students and one English teacher were interviewed after quantitative data processing.Interviews included students' attitudes toward English writing,causes of students' English writing anxiety,and the teacher's advice on alleviating students' English writing anxiety and so on.The present study found moderate level of English writing anxiety among the participants who experienced more avoidance behavior than somatic anxiety and cognitive anxiety,which were due to linguistic difficulties,insufficient writing technique,fear of teachers' negative comments and problems with topic choice.The results of the study revealed that there was no significant correlation between the participants' English writing anxiety and their writing performance such as writing length and writing W/T.However,it was found that as for the writing score,three compositions of five are significantly and negatively correlated with English writing anxiety.The results also revealed that there was no significant difference in writing performance between the participants with high level of English writing anxiety and those with low level of English writing anxiety.This study is expected to offer some implications for practitioners in this field who are dedicated to the improvement of writing performance among senior high school students.
Keywords/Search Tags:English writing, writing anxiety, senior high school students, writing performance
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