A Study On The Correlation Between Middle School Students' Listening Anxiety And Listening Achievement

Listening has long been recognized as one of the most anxiety-provoking skills for foreign language learners.For years,researchers have been linking foreign language learning with foreign language anxiety attempting to examine the potential correlation and the mutual interaction.Accordingly,the development of studies on the correlation between foreign language listening anxiety and listening comprehension achievements has successfully obtained extraordinary findings.In view of domestic researches,their focus tends to be on adult learners,particularly college students or English majors.Nevertheless,confronted with the transition of learning requirements and the increasingly heavy pressures from all sides,middle school students who are generally regarded as English beginners deserve the same attention.The present study aims to explore how English listening anxiety and listening comprehension achievements among middle school students are correlated.For this purpose,55 students from the 9th grade have been selected as the surveyed subjects.In the meanwhile,the 4"Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale" and semi-structured interview have also been applied into the analysis.As regards to the research procedures,there are two major stages.The initial stage is responsible for three goals:to survey the participants' general state of English listening anxiety,to observe the overall performance in the first listening comprehension test,and to investigate the association between students' general listening anxiety and their overall listening comprehension achievements.The follow-up research continues to look into the correlation between the two variables.But its main attention has been shifted from the overall participants to a specific group of students whose listening anxiety and listening performance have changed dramatically.In light of the careful exploration and arrangements,the following findings have been reached.First and foremost,a majority of the surveyed subjects manifest a medium level of listening anxiety.Secondly,subjects with intermediate or lower listening competence account for the majority.Thirdly,the significantly negative association between students'listening anxiety and their listening achievements has been demonstrated through correlation investigation.Lastly,the primary sources of students' listening anxiety examined in this study are made up of inadequate listening comprehension skills,the tension and worry over listening comprehension as well as the low levels of the self-perception in their listening competence.