An Empirical Study On The Influence Of Foreign Language Listening Anxiety On High School Students’ English Listening Proficiency

Listening plays a significant role in the four basic skills of foreign language learning,and it is the precondition and basis for understanding language input and communication.Having a good command of listening helps students improve their integrated language skills,which is also beneficial for communication and the implementation of key competencies in language teaching practice.However,teachers and students in Chinese high schools generally neglect the important role listening anxiety plays during the development of listening proficiency nowadays in English teaching practice.According to former researches,the level of listening anxiety is closely related to students’ listening performance.It is favorable for improving students’ listening proficiency if teachers can detect students’ listening anxiety level with scientific approaches and correspondingly carry out targeted anxiety intervention teaching plan.This study aims to explore the status quo of foreign language listening anxiety of students in a high school in Hangzhou,Zhejiang,find out effective teaching approaches to adjust students’ anxiety level and improve their listening proficiency based on Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis and Rogers’ and Maslow’s humanistic psychology.It aims to investigate: 1)what are the status quo and possible causes for foreign language listening anxiety experienced by high school students? 2)How does listening anxiety correlate to listening proficiency among high school students? 3)How does listening teaching adjustment influence students’ anxiety levels?In this study,the author adopts quantitative and qualitative research methods to conduct an investigation on Grade Two students of two parallel classes,all together 88 students in Hangzhou X High school.During the main stage of the study,the two classes are randomly chosen as the experimental group(EG)and the control group(CG).The author uses quantitative research methods such as scales and tests to test students’ foreign language listening anxiety(FLLA)level,the correlation between FLLA and listening performance,and possible sources of anxiety.Interviews are also conducted to give feedback on the causes and results of experiments.Data collected during the process were analyzed by Statistic Package for Social Science(SPSS 16.0)and the classification analysis method.Based on the above research,it is found that: 1)At present,high school students are generally affected by middle or high-level FLLA,and the factors causing it are diverse.2)Middle and high-level listening anxiety has a negative effect on students’ listening proficiency.3)By psychological counseling,improvement of listening materials,systematic listening strategies training and appropriate corrective methods,students’ listening anxiety levels have decreased and their listening performance has improved.Based on the research findings,this paper puts forward suggestions for teachers’ listening teaching.