English Writing Anxiety And Its Effects On English Writing Performance

Among all the affective factors,anxiety is the most harmful factor to the second language acquisition(Cheng,2004).Writing anxiety is one of the important factors that hinder students' English writing ability improvement.This study aims at exploring current situation of English writing anxiety and its relationship with English writing performance among junior middle school students.Research questions are as following:(1)Is there English writing anxiety in junior middle school students?(2)What are the causes of students' anxiety in English writing?(3)What is the relationship between English writing anxiety and English writing performance? The author studied 114 students in a junior middle school in Xi'an by using questionnaire and interview to explore the relationship between English writing anxiety and English writing performance.The results show that junior middle school students have low degree of English writing anxiety;there is a significant negative correlation between English writing anxiety and English writing performance,that is,the higher the English writing anxiety the students have,the lower the students' English writing performance is,and vice versa;the research also indicates that insufficient knowledge preparation,fear of negative evaluation and unfamiliar topic of composition are the main reasons which caused students' writing anxiety.Suggestions are also put forward to ease students' English writing anxiety and improve their learning.