Abstract:Since 1970s, with the shift of the focus of educational process from the part of the teacher to that of the learner, more and more researchers both at home and abroad show their concerns about the learners’ affective factors and personality. A large amount of previous studies have shown that affective factors have great impact on the language achievements. Among the affective factors, anxiety is one of the pervasive obstructions in second/foreign language acquisition. Since China is a nation with many English learners, discussions on English classroom anxiety have both theoretical significance and practical value.
This study investigated 65 English majors and 40 English teachers respectively in Xinxiang Medical University. By means of questionnaires, this research intends to find out the main factors causing English classroom anxiety and explore the causes leading to anxiety from both the teachers’ and the students’ aspects. Firstly, the writer designed the English Classroom Anxiety Scale based on Horwitz’s FLCAL to study the students’ anxiety factors quantitively and figure out the causes leading to English classroom anxiety. Secondly, from teachers’ point of view, this investigation intends to use the questionnaire to find out how much teachers know about the English classroom anxiety, how they deal with it so as to seek the effective methods to alleviate it.
The major findings of the present study are as follows: all the students suffer more or less English classroom anxiety. The main factors leading to English classroom anxiety are the students’ attitude toward learning English, their confidence, their personality, classroom atmosphere, classroom interaction, teachers’ evaluation on the students’ performance and tests, etc.
This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction to the thesis, including the motivation, the significance, research objectives and the organization of the thesis. Chapter Two is the literature review, presenting the definition of anxiety, foreign language anxiety, Horwitz et al’s construct of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and factors which facilitate or debilitate anxiety. It also describes the three approaches to anxiety. And three main components of language anxiety, namely communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluations are also presented. Chapter Three is the research design. Detailed information of the present study including the research questions, subjects, instruments, data collecting procedures and the statistical software of data analysis are described. Chapter Four is data analysis and discussion of the study. The last chapter summarizes the major findings of the research. And then some implications for students and teachers about how to reduce the English classroom anxiety are presented.
Key words: affective factors, anxiety, English classroom anxiety
摘要:二十世纪七十年代以来，随着教学过程重心从教师向学习者的转移，学习者的情感因素、个性受到国内外学者越来越多的关注。大量的研究表明，情感因素对语言成绩有很大的影响。在众多的情感因素中，焦虑是阻碍语言习得过程最主要的因素之一。我国拥有众多英语学习者，因此，对于英语课堂焦虑的研究具有重要的理论意义和现实价值。
本研究以新乡医学院外语系的65名学生和40名教师为研究对象，通过问卷调查，试图从教师与和学生两个维度寻找引起英语课堂焦虑的因素及原因。首先，本研究参照霍尔维茨的外语学习焦虑量表设计了英语课堂焦虑量表，对学生的焦虑因素进行定量研究，寻求引起英语课堂焦虑的原因；再者，作者通过问卷对教师进行调查，旨在了解教师对英语课堂焦虑的认知程度，教师在授课过程中对学生焦虑情绪的关注情况，从而寻求减轻学生英语课堂焦虑的有效方法。
研究结果显示：新乡医学院英语专业学生经历都有不同程度的英语课堂焦虑。造成学生焦虑的主要因素有：学生学习英语的态度，学生的信心，学生的性格，学生课前准备情况，课堂气氛，课堂互动，教师所使用的评价语言，考试等。
本研究共有五章。第一章是本研究的总体介绍，包括研究动机、研究意义、研究目的和论文结构。第二章是文献综述部分，对焦虑的定义、外语学习焦虑、焦虑的种类等进行了回顾。第三章是研究设计部分，详细介绍了研究问题、研究工具、研究对象、数据搜集过程和数据的分析。第四章是本研究的数据分析和讨论。第五章是本研究的结论以及本研究对英语专业学生及英语教师就如何降低英语课堂焦虑的启示。
关键词：情感因素，焦虑，英语课堂焦虑
