An Empirical Study On The Relationship Among Foreign Language Learning Strategies,Learning Anxiety And Academic Achievements Of Non-English Majors

As the focus on “how to teach” has shifted to “how to learn” in foreign language teaching research,individual learner differences,especially learning strategies and learning anxiety,have received considerable attention from researchers.There have been varieties of researches concerning the relationship among English learning strategies,learning anxiety and learning achievements.However,the results of these studies are not consistent with each other completely,such as the specific strategy or anxiety that has the most positive or negative correlation with learning achievements.Therefore,it is of necessity to perform a further empirical research to study their relationships.In order to explore the relationship among English leaning strategies,learning anxiety and learning achievements,two modified questionnaires were employed as the instruments to investigate 276 non-English-major undergraduates.One is based on the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning(SILL)developed by Oxford(1990);the other is on the basis of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS)developed by Horwitz et al.(1986).Both of them are reorganized in accordance with Chinese learners and learning environment.Descriptive analysis,one-way ANOVA analysis and Pearson correlation analysis were computed in SPSS after data collection.The research shows that firstly,most students employ learning strategies with moderate frequency and compensation strategies are used most frequently while affective strategies are of the lowest frequency of use.There are significant positive correlations between learning strategies and learning achievements,and the cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies have the strongest positive correlations with learning achievements.Secondly,the majority of the students experience moderate anxiety and communication anxiety ranks the most serious.There are significant negative correlations between learning anxiety and learning achievements.Test anxiety and negative evaluation anxiety are more negatively correlated with learning achievements.Thirdly,there are significant negative correlations between English learning strategies and learning anxiety.Students who have a higher level of English learning anxiety tend to use cognitive strategies,social strategies,affective strategies,meta-cognitive strategies less frequently.The more frequently students use English learning strategies,the less anxious the students feel about communication,test and negative evaluation.Fourthly,English learning strategies exert a mediator effect on the influence of English learning anxiety on the learning achievements.The thesis analyzes the in-depth reasons behind the relationship among the three variables and put forward some teaching and learning implications concerning learning strategies and learning anxiety from the results of the research.It can beconcluded that English learning strategies and learning anxiety exert a crucial role in the process of English learning.Therefore,for one thing,teachers are supposed to guide students to make efficient use of related strategies in English learning,especially cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies;for another thing,teachers are responsible for reducing students' anxiety by means of psychological relieving,classroom teaching and strategy training.Thus,students' English learning performance and achievements can be facilitated.