A Study On The Effects Of Teacher Feedback On Junior Middle School Students' English Learning Anxiety

In recent years,more and more scholars have been paying attention to the influence of affective factors on second language acquisition.Anxiety,an essential emotional factor,cannot be ignored in second language learning.Several studies have found that experiencing anxiety is a common phenomenon when students are learning English,which affects students' performance and their interest.In China,the bulk of English learning takes place in class,where teachers guide classroom teaching.Teacher feedback affects the anxiety students experience.There is plenty of research on teacher feedback and on English learning anxiety,but little research on the relationship between the two.Therefore,this paper focuses on exploring the influence of teacher feedback on English learning anxiety.Utilizing Krashen's affective filtering hypothesis,humanistic education theory,and the Birmingham School's classroom discourse model as the main theoretical framework,this paper mainly discusses the following issues:1)What are the effects of teachers' positive feedback on junior middle school students' English learning anxiety?2)What are the effects of teachers' negative feedback on junior middle school students' English learning anxiety?To solve the above research questions,the author surveyed 96 students from Grade Two of a junior middle school,using a combination of questionnaires and interviews to explore the impact of teacher feedback on junior middle school students' English learning anxiety.The results are as follows:1)Teachers' positive feedback can reduce students' English learning anxiety in most cases,while positive feedback can improve students' enthusiasm.2)Students are anxious about receiving negative feedback,different types of negative feedback bring different levels of learning anxiety to students,and explicit correction,repetition and criticism make students more anxious.Negative feedback can also bring positive influence to students,and elicitation can alleviate students' learning anxiety.In order to help teachers better understand English learning anxiety,this study explores the influence of teacher feedback on English learning anxiety of junior middle school students.Furthermore,it provides suggestions for teachers which may allow them to reduce students' anxiety.There are still some shortcomings in this study,one being the small sample size.Beyond that,the influence of teachers' non-verbal feedback on students' learning anxiety is not discussed.Hopefully,future research can address these issues.