An Empirical Study On The Correlation On English Listening Anxiety And Listening Strategies By College English-majored Students

Researchers' focus on second language acquisition transfers from teaching itself to the individual differences of learners in the process of language acquisition.Attention on how affective factors effect on learners' learning behaviors and learning outcome is also paid by researchers.Language skill specific anxieties,especially listening anxiety,need to merit more concern.Based on the analysis above,the research come up with four research questions: 1)Do the English-majored students have listening anxiety? If they have,what are the characteristics of their anxiety? 2)What listening strategies do the English-majored students use? What are the characteristics of their listening strategies usage? 3)Does the listening anxiety influence the participants' usage of listening strategies? If yes,what is their relationship? 4)Do the students with different second language proficiency have the differences in term of usage of their listening strategies?If yes,what are the differences in detail?The study is conducted with both quantitative method and qualitative method,consisting a questionnaire,a semi-structured interview and a think-aloud report.120English-major sophomore students in Xi'an International Studies University are investigated as the research subjects in this research.The results of the research indicate that the relationship between listening anxiety and listening strategies is a negative correlation.Moreover,there is a strong negative correlation between listening anxiety and meta-cognitive strategies,cognitive strategies are in the second place and social/affective strategies are the least.Its significance is as follows: First,teachers should figure out the negative correlation between listening anxiety and listening strategies so that they can reduce students' anxiety through listening strategies training.Second,teachers should concern about promoting the meta-cognitive awareness of lower score group students and improving their ability to use self-monitoring strategies.As a conclusion,in order to reduce listening anxiety,the researcher recommended that students should improve theirself-learning ability,prepare before listening class,and practice listening strategies through a large number of exercises after class.