高中生外语学习的焦虑成因分析及对策研究

1、摘 要本文首先回顾了以往的关于语言焦虑的症状，并且设计了一套关于语言焦虑产生原因的实验。然后在高中中进行了课堂观察和问卷调查，根据实验的结果分析总结出了语言焦虑产生的两个主要部分原因：教师方面的原因，学生方面的原因。之后对特定的学生进行了交流，通过交流和之前的实验的结果进一步分析出了一套针对老师和学生两方面的解决策略。关键词：语言焦虑；课堂观察；解决策略ABSTRACTThis paper first has a literature review on the symptoms of language anxiety, and designs a series of survey on th

2、e causing factors of language anxiety. It then has a survey based on classroom observations and questionnaires to the students. Based on the results of the survey, it sums up the two main causing factors of language anxiety after the analysis: the causes of foreign language teachers and the causes o

3、f foreign language learners. It finally has some interviews with some specially designated students. According to the interviews and the results of the survey, it sums up a series of strategies for alleviating language anxiety.Keywords：language anxiety; observations; strategiesContents1. Introductio

4、n22. Definition of Language Anxiety32.1 Literature Review32.2 Symptoms of Language Anxiety33. A Survey Based on Classroom Observations63.1 Observations of Classroom Teaching63.2 A questionnaire to the students83.3 Data Collection83.4 Data Analysis94. Potential Language Anxiety Causing Factors154.1 T

5、he Causes of Foreign Language Teachers154.2 The Causes of Foreign Language Learners185 Some Strategies for Alleviating Language Anxiety195.1 Some Strategies to Teachers195.2 Some Strategies to Learners226. Conclusion25Acknowledgements26References27Appendix31Appendix321. IntroductionLanguage anxiety

6、is fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language 15176. This anxiety is linked directly to performing in the target language, so it is not a general performance anxiety. Language anxiety ranks high among factors influencing language learning,

7、regardless of whether the setting is informal or formal 3257Intricately intertwined with self-esteem and inhabitation and risk-taking, the construct of anxiety plays an important affective role in second language learning. Anxiety is almost impossible to define in a simple sentence. It is associated

8、 with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, a vague fear. We all know what anxiety is and we all have experienced feelings of anxious. How does this construct relate to second language learning? Any complex task we undertake can have elements of anxiety in it, aspects in whi

9、ch we doubt our own abilities and wonder if we will indeed succeed. Second language learning is no exception of complex tasks that are susceptible to our human anxieties. In the field of Foreign Language Teaching along with the development of psycholinguistics, the emotional aspect of learners is re

10、ceiving increasing concern in addition to the cognitive aspect. Of a multiplicity of affective elements that influence foreign language learning, language anxiety is the one that cannot be overlooked. Researchers have studied the effects of anxiety on foreign language learning since the 1970s, and n

11、egative correlations between language anxiety and foreign language learning have already been discovered832. Language anxiety is an awful feeling for language learners and it in turn hampers their potential for foreign language learning. With a view to tackling this thorny problem, the author of the

12、 present paper examines language anxiety as well as its effects on foreign language learning, with a focus on the exploration of language anxiety-causing factors in high-school classroom. Students low self-esteem, low degree of ambiguity-tolerance, competitiveness and their personality are all inter

13、related with the occurrence of foreign language anxiety459. Instead of analyzing language anxiety from these facets, the author of this paper looks into the problem from a new angle. High-school foreign language teachers, who lead students to the door of knowledge and guide them to explore in the fa

14、scinating world of language, also play an important role in the foreign language learning process of students. 2. Definition of Language Anxiety2.1 Literature ReviewWhen learning a new language, we may experience a kind of worry known as language anxiety. This mental state is defined as “the fear or

15、 apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language” 15176. Regardless of whether the setting is formal or informal, language anxiety ranks high among factors influencing foreign language learning. language anxiety is similar to communication apprehension

16、defined as “an individual level of fear or anxiety, associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” 3083. Consequently, in the process of foreign language learning which requires much communication, students experiencing language anxiety may avoid interaction

17、 and fail to actively participate in classroom activities. Alpert and Haber draw a distinction between facilitating and debilitating anxiety. The former motivates learners to fight the new learning task, prompting them to make extra effort to overcome their feelings of anxiety 3207, but Horwitz sugg

18、ests that this may only occur in fairly simple learning tasks. The latter causes the learner to flee the learning task in order to avoid the source of anxiety 19559. “Though some language researchers assert that a positive mode of anxiety exists, most language researches show a negative relationship

19、 between anxiety and performance” 460. According to Arnold, the negative kind of anxiety, called debilitating anxiety harms learners performance in many ways, both indirectly through worry and self-doubt and directly by reducing participation and creating overt avoidance of the language. 460 2.2 Sym

20、ptoms of Language AnxietyResearch evidence shows that language anxiety comes from a considerable number of potential sources. Some of them are associated with the learner, some with the teacher, and some with the instructional process. To specify, correlates of language anxiety range from highly per

21、sonal (such as self-esteem) to procedural.Self-esteemBy self-esteem, we refer to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicate the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capa

22、ble, significant, successful and worthy4679. Oxford claims that self-esteem is a self-judgment of worth or value, based on feelings of efficacy, a sense of interacting effectively with ones own environment. 32127 Efficacy implies that some degree of control exits within oneself. According to Price,

23、unsuccessful language learners often have lower self-esteem than successful language learners. Whether this affects their overall self-esteem or only their situational self-esteem partly depends on how important language learning is to the individuals involved. 3377 Self-esteem is vulnerable when th

24、e learner perceives himself or herself as very competent in the native language and totally inadequate or limited in the target language 3377 Horwitz and Cope had pointed out that second language learning can cause a threat to self-esteem and by depriving learners of their normal means of communicat

25、ion, their freedom to make errors, and their ability to behave like normal people. Among highly anxious language learners, those with high self-esteem will handle their anxiety better than those with low self-esteem, resulting in better performance. Like anxiety, self-esteem can be a trait or a stat

26、e. A person can feel himself globally or generally, yet at the same time experience low self-esteem in a particularly situation or environment 39325.Social anxietySocial anxiety can include speech anxiety, shyness, stage fright, embarrassment, social-evaluative anxiety and communication apprehension

27、 27129. Social anxiety occurs along with the prospect or actual presence of interpersonal evaluation. People who are highly concerned about others evaluations of them and we might assume these to be people with shaky self-esteem or strong external locus of control (the learners belief that his or he

28、r own performance is controlled by external factors) tend to act in ways that minimize the likelihood or negative assessments. These people are more likely to avoid or withdraw from social situations in which others might view them negatively. When they relate to others, they often fail to take the

29、initiative or participate only minimally in conversations 1135. In the language classroom, this is observable in behaviors such as keeping silent responding only when necessary, being passive, and avoiding class entirely. Communication apprehension is defined as a persons level of anxiety associated

30、 with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons 31357 people who suffer from communication apprehensions are more reluctant to converse or interact with others; therefore, they tend to avoid communications or withdraw from it as soon as possible. Test anxietyOxford defi

31、ned test anxiety could be part of social anxiety, particularly in an evaluative situation where the student is asked to communicate in the target language 32177. However, test anxiety can occur in no communicative situations, too. Test anxiety is the tendency to become alarmed about the consequences

32、 of inadequate performance on a test or other evaluation 38929, regardless of whether the fears are realistic. Students with test anxiety frequently experience cognitive interference 38929 and a difficult time focusing on the task at hand. 178 In fact, test anxiety has become a phenomenon among the

33、learners affective factors. After we have a brief idea of the language anxiety, we should pay more attention on how the language anxiety affected on the learners language learning and how to deal with this kind of anxiety. Therefore, a survey was designed here to help analysis this problem.3. A Surv

34、ey Based on Classroom ObservationsWhen I practiced in the Qin Huangdao No.1 high school, I was deeply concerned about the state of mind of English learners. Students showed a different state of mind. Some students are very interested in English, who achieve relatively excellent performance in Englis

35、h. While others who are not interested in English show resentment to the English teachers. Of course, this part of the students achievement is not good enough. I realized that English learning is not just a learning process but also affected by the state of mind. This emotional aversion towards Engl

36、ish language and English teachers, to a large extent, influence students English learning. A positive impact will promote ones English learning, on the contrary, the negative impact will restrain the learning of English. Therefore, I think it is necessary to examine the anxiety in language learning

37、and analyze the reasons and impact of its existence, and the strategies and solutions.This study employs a survey to examine whether the negative impact of foreign language teachers is interrelated with learners language anxiety. The survey, carried out in N0.1 Middle School in Qin Huangdao, was bas

38、ed on classroom observations in Class 1 and Class 2 at separate time but on the same day. The number of the students who were all in the first grade was 53 and 54 respectively. The ages of the students of the two classes ranged from 16 to 17. In each of the two classes, fifty students were selected

39、randomly to do the questionnaire. The two female teachers in Class 1 and Class 2 were at the age of 35 and 29 respectively. I audited the first lesson in Unit 3, the title of which was “Looking Good, Feeling Good”. They used “Cambridge High School English” written by Joanne Claire Kent as their text

40、book. The two classes were identical in age, textbook, day for studying the lesson as well as the gender of their teachers. Without the interference of these variables, anxiety-causing causes were explored. 3.1 Observations of Classroom TeachingDuring the two English classes, special attention was p

41、aid to the two teachers performance, which is now listed in the following table for comparison. According this table, the differences of the two teachers are showed clearly. Therefore, the effect of the teachers performance on the students language learning are well indicated here. So, we could anal

42、ysis the language anxiety causing factor from the teachers part.Teacher ATeacher BOverall impressionAloofness characterized the teachers entrance into the classroom. Words were spoken in a flat tone. An air of dominance was apparent.Enthusiasm characterized the teachers entrance into the classroom.

43、Spontaneous and conversational tone of voice prevailed in the class. Her assuring glance gave students encouragement constantly.Treatment of errorsStudents underwent constant embarrassment when their answers were compared to their peers. Student errors were not tactically corrected."Excuse me?”

44、 or "Pardon?” were employed to hint that the student's utterance contained some mistakes. Sometimes errors were gently pointed out. Cultural informationRelevant cultural information was not offered when students might easily feel at a loss.Apart from the teaching of grammatical points, cult

45、ural information was also touched upon in the language class.Way of asking questionsAn air of sullenness was on her face. When it was a simple question, her way of speaking caused students to have a sense of inferiority. e.g. Its evident that this is a very easy question. Weve discussed it last time

46、. Smile that indicted her sincerity could be seen on her face. Such expressions as “Does anyone know?”, “Would you please tell me?” were used constantly, which greatly softened her tone. Such encouragement as “Just have a try” was also frequently employed.Teacher responseMerely “Right” was said when

47、 the answer offered was appropriate. Sometimes students did get praise when their answers were satisfactory. However, the teachers facial expression seemed to indicate that the student did not deserve the praise.When answers offered were correct, Such verbal praise as “very good”, “excellent” was co

48、nstantly given to students. Appreciation was displayed by a kind and pleasant countenance.Classroom activitiesDialogues and role-play activities were organized. However, there was little teacher guidance. There was little encouragement from the teacher.Interviews and a mini-debate were organized. Si

49、lent time was provided to students and group discussions were organized when they were to fulfill demanding tasks. To make the task easier, the teacher went around to offer help. 3.2 A questionnaire to the studentsThe questionnaire consisting of 15 items was designed in a most objective way so that

50、it would not mislead the respondents (See Appendix). Each item was on a 5-point scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”, the middle point being “no opinion”. Students could choose only one from the five choices. In order to ensure its accuracy, all these items were arranged in a r

51、andom order. The questionnaire includes three aspects: (1) factors that may cause language anxiety; (2) general feeling of language anxiety and language learning; (3) strategies for alleviating language anxiety. The copies of the questionnaire were translated into Chinese when they were handed out t

52、o the subjects.3.3 Data CollectionImmediately after classroom observations, 100 copies of the questionnaire were randomly distributed to the students of the two classes, 50 copies for each class. Though they finished the questionnaire at different points of time, the conditions for measurement were

53、almost the same. Data-collection was taken in a recess after the English class and all were returned on the same day. Through the data collected, the reactions of the students can be shown, which provide information of great importance for data analyses. The feedback was displayed in percentage term

54、s in two tables for comparison and contrast (See Appendix). 3.4 Data AnalysisForeign language teachers can be a positive source of learning. However, if they fail to fulfill students needs or adopt an inappropriate teaching method, they may be a source of language anxiety. The data collected are ana

55、lyzed in the following paragraphs. For the convenience of data-analysis, the responses to “strongly agree” and “agree” were combined to create an overall percentage of agreement with the question, and the responses to “disagree” and “strongly disagree” were similarly mixed to gain a measure of disag

56、reement. 3.4.1 The comparison of the two classes feel culture confusionItem 11: The sharp different cultures puzzle me in class.Reactions to item 11 indicate the difference between the two groups of respondents (See Appendix). Only 28% of the respondents in Class B feel puzzled when confronted with

57、the sharp contrast between the oriental culture and the occidental culture. But by contrast, 72% of the respondents in Class A feel perplexed by it. Evidently such a finding calls into question Teacher As cultural awareness in teaching. As is shown in the above-mentioned comparison between the two t

58、eachers, relevant cultural information is not touched upon when students may feel at a loss in Class A. Brown has suggested that one language learning context is referred to as foreign language learning, or learning a non-native language in ones own culture with few immediate and widespread opportunities to use the language within the environment of ones culture636Obviously, learning English in China is a case in point. Simultaneously faced with an unknown language and an unknown culture, language learner