A Study On English Classroom Anxiety Of Senior High School Students

With the vigorous development of humanism in the 1960 s,more and more educational scholars have showed interest in studying the emotional factors of second and foreign language learners.Anxiety,identified as a key ingredient of affects,has been explored in a variety of circumstances concerning the language learners.However,as the modern society keeps bringing challenges and opportunities for school education,the necessity to study foreign language learners' anxiety is still there.In order to further understand the current situation of senior high school students(SHSS)' English classroom anxiety(ECA)in China,this research investigates 610 students from Xiaoyi Secondary School of Shanxi province and mainly aims to answer these questions :(1)What is the current situation of students' ECA?(2)What is the difference between male and female students in terms of their anxiety level?(3)What is the difference of students' ECA among different grades?(4)What are the main factors causing students' ECA? The data are analyzed using the SPSS.19.The main findings are as follows:(1)Students in Xiaoyi Secondary School generally have ECA,ranging from the moderate to high level.Test anxiety and communication apprehension are more reported types.(2)Male students suffer more serious anxiety in general than the female students.And there are significant differences among them in test anxiety,communication apprehension,and the fear of negative evaluation.(3)Grade three students have higher ECA than the students of Grade one and Grade two.And the level of anxiety increases with the grades.In addition,Grade one students' ECA is mainly manifest in communication apprehension,while Grade two and Grade three students' ECA is mainly manifest in test anxiety.(4)The causes of ECA fall into three main stake groups: teachers,students and families.Teachers' monotonous teaching method,serious classroom questioning and negative evaluating methods increase their classroom learning anxiety.Students' introverted character,inefficient learning methods,insufficient learning strategies and failure of the past experience of English learning also lead to their ECA.In addition,high schoolstudents also suffer much pressure from their families.High expectations from parents,poor family education and the lack of parent-child communication can also aggravate the ECA of the high school students.The current study also puts forward some suggestions.For teachers,they should deal with students' errors in a flexible and strategic way,optimize classroom teaching and evaluating methods,and create a positive classroom atmosphere to help reduce students' ECA.From the perspective of students,they need to better understand themselves and build up confidence in English learning.Besides,they also need to adjust their English learning attitude,improve their learning efficiency to further alleviate the anxiety of English learning.For parents,they should have reasonable expectations toward their children and try to create a harmonious family atmosphere.They also need to give their children equal respect and encourage their autonomous ability.