The Research On The Effect Of Non-english Majors’ English Writing Anxiety On Writing Performance

Based on the Affective Filter Hypothesis and Tobias’ s three-stage model,this study investigates the effect of English writing anxiety on writing performance.Taking 135 non-English majors as the research subjects,this study analyzes the writing performance of students’ writing essays,and answers the following three questions with the help of Cheng’s SLWAI(2004)and semi-structured interview:(1)What is current situation of non-English majors’ English writing anxiety?(2)What is the relationship between English writing anxiety and writing performance?(3)Are there differences in writing performance between high and low anxiety level groups?If so,what are the differences?Through descriptive analysis,Pearson correlation analysis,and Independent-Samples T Test,the results indicate:(1)Non-English majors’ English writing anxiety is generally at a moderate level,and among the three subscales of English writing anxiety,the level of somatic anxiety is the lowest,followed by cognitive anxiety and avoidance behavior;(2)English writing anxiety is significantly correlated with syntactic complexity and fluency,but not significantly correlated with lexical complexity and accuracy.(3)Between high and low anxiety level groups,there are significant differences in syntactic complexity and fluency but no significant differences in lexical complexity and accuracy.This study provides empirical data about the effect of English writing anxiety on writing performance.Moreover,the research results offer a reference to college English teachers in teaching English writing.