A Study On Self-Regulation Strategies Of Senior High School Students' English Writing Anxiety

Listening,speaking,reading,writing are four basic skills that are necessary for English learners.For English learners,writing is a very important skill and one of the most difficult skills to master.It can reflect English learners' English comprehensive abilities and is influenced by many factors.As foreign language teaching developed,there was a change in the emphasis of foreign language teaching research from“emphasis on teachers'teaching,to "emphasis on students,learning".More and more attention has been paid to the influence of foreign language learners' affective factors on their foreign language learning.Anxiety as one of foreign language learners' affective factors has become one of hot spots in foreign language teaching research.Plenty of research showed that English writing anxiety exerted an influence on English learners,English learning.Domestic and overseas research on English writing anxiety focused on four aspects:the influence of English writing anxiety on writing achievements;the causes of English writing anxiety;the relationships between English writing anxiety and other variables;empirical research on lowering English writing anxiety.Most of them focused on the importance of teacher's role and discussed how to help students lower or overcome their English writing anxiety from the perspective of teachers but rarely investigated how students relieved their English writing anxiety by relying on their own efforts——self-regulation strategies.Moreover,the research subjects were usually undergraduates and postgraduates but were seldom senior high school students.Therefore,this study intends to investigate self-regulation strategies of senior high school students' English writing anxiety.The research questions are as follows:(1)What is the general situation of English writing anxiety of senior high school students?(2)What kinds of self-regulation strategies of English writing anxiety do senior high school students use?What is the general situation of usage?(3)What are the differences in the usage of self-regulation strategies of English writing anxiety among senior high school students at different anxiety levels?(4)How can senior high school students effectively use self-regulation strategies to lower their English writing anxiety?This study employed quantitative research method and used Senior High School Students' English Writing Anxiety Inventory and Senior High School Students'Self-Regulation Strategies of English Writing Anxiety Inventory to collect data.Research subjects were 120 senior high school students from Middle School Attached to HUST.All the data was processed by SPSS 22.0.The findings of this study indicate that:firstly,English writing anxiety does exist in the English learning among senior high school students and they experience a medium-level writing anxiety.Writing anxiety significantly and negatively relates to writing achievements.The level of female students' writing anxiety is a little bit higher than that of male students.Secondly,there are three main types of self-regulation strategies that are self-efficacy enhancement,avoidance strategy and action strategy.And the general strategy usage of senior high school students i5 at low level.Thirdly,there is a positive correlation between writing anxiety and the use of self?regulation strategies(moderate-anxiety group>high-anxiety group>low-anxiety group).There is a significant difference of using total self-regulation strategies between moderate-anxiety group and low-anxiety group.However,differences between high-anxiety group and moderate-anxiety group,high-anxiety group and low-anxiety group are not significant.Self?efficacy enhancement has a slight and negative correlation with writing anxiety(moderate-anxiety group>low-anxiety group>high-anxiety group).The differences in using self-efficacy enhancement among the three different-anxiety groups are not significant.Avoidance strategy significantly and positively relates to writing anxiety(high-anxiety group>moderate-anxiety group>low-anxiety group).There are significant differences in using avoidance strategy among three different-anxiety groups.Action strategy slightly and negatively correlates with writing anxiety(low-anxiety group>moderate-anxiety group>high-anxiety group).The differences in using action strategy among the three different-anxiety groups are not significant.Fourthly,the ways of senior high school students' effective use of self-regulation strategies to alleviate their English writing anxiety can be divided into three procedures:firstly,preparation in the forethought phase of writing.Students should prepare themselves to use self-regulation strategies in this phase,which means students should have the motivation to use self-regulation strategies in writing but not to avoid writing.Secondly,self-control in the performance stage of writing.Students should control their writing anxiety at a suitable degree in case high writing anxiety impedes their writing performance.Self-efficacy enhancement has an important role in this phase to alleviate students,writing anxiety.Thirdly,evaluation in the self-reflection phase of writing.The attributional style plays an essential role in the evaluation of the usage of self-regulation strategies.Students should make evaluation of the usage of self-regulation strategies based on their internal and controllable attributions for effort and strategies.Based on the research findings,some pedagogical implications are offered to both students' learning of English writing and teachers' teaching of English writing.It is beneficial for students to know better about their English writing anxiety and its self-regulation strategies,which can help them adopt and use appropriate self-regulation strategies according to different anxiety levels.Meanwhile,it is also beneficial for teachers to know the general situation of students' English writing anxiety and their usage of self-regulation strategies,which can help teachers to adjust their English writing teaching and provide students with appropriate self-regulation strategies to help lower their English writing anxiety according to students' different anxiety situations and anxiety levels.