| Learning English has been an important communication and exchange tool with society’s constant advancement and development.Therefore,it has been paid more and more attention by people.During the initial stage of learning English,the elementary school stage has played an important role,which requires them to lay a good foundation and improve capacities in different aspects of English.However,due to these factors,such as exams,parents’ expectations and teachers’ improper teaching methods,elementary school students commonly have had worries about learning English to a certain extent.Excessive anxiety can reduce students’ effectiveness and interest in learning and create many potential problems for primary school students’ English learning.Exploring the efficient means to alleviate pupils’ concerns in learning English can effectively promote students’ psychological health and growth.Integrated group sandplay therapy emphasizes a unique “psychological field” among members as a new psychological consultation technique.The exceptional strength will affect group members’ cognition,emotions,behaviors,etc.In addition,due to its features,it has been broadly applied in psychological consultation at school.Everyone has loved it,especially the pupils in the development period,who can accept it more easily.A total of 309 copies of the Chinese version of the English Classroom Learning Anxiety Scale(FLCAS)were distributed to all elementary school students from Year 3 to Year 6.309 copies were returned,with a return rate of 100%.Excluding five invalid questionnaires,the number of valid questionnaires was 304,with a valid return rate of 98.4%(this study was conducted in schools where English was studied from Grade 3).The study investigated the overall characteristics of elementary school students’ English learning anxiety and the differences in English learning anxiety variables between different types of these pupils.In Study 2,the top 27% of students in Grades 4 and 6 were selected for the questionnaire.Ten students from each grade with high scores were chosen as participants through interviews and voluntarily,of whom five were in the intervention group and five were in the control group.The intervention group played once a week for a total of 20 sessions.At the end of the intervention,the differences in the scores of the participants’ questionnaires before and after the intervention were compared to investigate and verify the effectiveness of the group integrative sandplay intervention for elementary school students’ English learning anxiety.Finally,from the findings of the study,some suggestions are made to improve elementary school students’ English learning anxiety.The data analysis of 304 English classroom learning anxiety questionnaires revealed that the number of elementary school students with low anxiety was 37.50% of the total,the number of elementary school students with medium anxiety was 36.18% of the total,the number of students without anxiety was 15.46%,and the number of students with high anxiety was 10.86%.There were significant differences in English learning anxiety among elementary school students by grade level in terms of communication fear,but not in terms of other factors.There were significant differences by gender in terms of test anxiety,but not in other aspects.There were no significant differences in all factors of English learning anxiety among elementary school students with different personalities,but the values of introverted students were generally higher than those of extroverted students.After the intervention,members of the intervention group scored significantly lower on all levels of English learning anxiety,while the control group did not differ significantly in their scores before and after the intervention and neither group showed significant differences between grades.Based on the findings of the study,the following conclusions were drawn.(1)Elementary school students’ English learning anxiety was generally at a low to moderate anxiety level.There were significant differences in communication fear across grades,and it increased with grade level.There were significant differences in test anxiety across genders,with boys being higher than girls.English learning anxiety was significantly negatively correlated with English performance,and the higher the level of English learning anxiety,the lower the English performance.(2)Integrated group sandplay therapy has good intervention effects on reducing English learning anxiety among elementary school students. |
