Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
Ever since Brown (1973) published his article Affective Variables in SecondLanguage Acquisition in Language Learning, the effect of anxiety on foreignlanguage learning has long been an interest of language educators and scholars foralmost 40 years. It is an important affective filter (Krashen, 1985) in the process offoreign language learning. In 1986, Horwitz et al. designed the Foreign LanguageClassroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and it has been widely used to test the degree offoreign language anxiety thereafter. The process of foreign language learning itself is“ego-threatening” (Horwitz et al, 1986), therefore, a negative correlation was oftenreported between foreign language anxiety (FLA) and achievements. According to theprevious researches, anxiety may stem from students’ negative self-comparisons withothers (Bailey, 1983), concern about the impressions others form of them (Horwitz etal., 1986; Aida, 1994; Gregersen and Horwitz, 2002; Gregersen, 2003), and fear offailure (Gregersen and Horwitz, 2002). Gregersen (2003) stated that “anxiety aboutlearning a foreign language is cyclical”.Research on FLA have developed from the nature, composition andmeasurement of FLA to its overall impact on foreign/second languageacquisition/learning, and then expanded to its influence on language skills such asspeaking, listening, reading and writing. Later, researchers are interested indiscovering its effect from varieties of learner factors, such as age, gender, culture,social status et cetera. Lately, more subjective factors such as personality, belief arestudied. The source of FLA and its alleviation are enduring issues since such researchbegan. Whether at home or abroad, research subjects mainly focus on undergraduates,sometimes middle school students, primary school students and preschoolers, fewcould be seen on senior or advanced learners. However, no studies on English majorgraduates (EMG) could be found.
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1.2 Research Significance and Questions to be answered
The existing articles on language learning at home could be classified into threetypes: 1) reviews of literatures of home and abroad (Li and Lin, 2007); 2)introductions of the theory and research findings of foreign scholars (Wang and Wan,2001); and empirical studies applying qualitative, or quantitative method or both. Theresults of most of these empirical studies were consistent with studies abroad, that is,a negative correlation between scores of FLCAS and language achievements. Thesubjects of which were either college/university students (both English major andnon-English major) or learners at a lower level, seldom are of advanced learners,except few recent Master’s thesis (Dai, 2011) and journals (Long and Wang, 2012).The first and the most essential significance of the present study is the researchsubjects. Despite that many scholars, educators and learners acknowledge foreignlanguage learning anxiety is “a rather pervasive phenomenon” (McCoy, 1979; Fossand Reitzel, 1988; Aida, 1994; Saito et al., 1999), few studies could be found onEMGs. This possibly dues to a widespread belief that EMGs are usually adult andadvanced learners, they not only have mastered this language to a certain degree butalso are supposed to be capable of taking control of their own emotions. In fact, it is often reported that more advanced learners tend to experience higher levels of anxiety(Horwitz, 1996), for they always have to bear higher expectations for their languageproficiency from both themselves and the society, and their performances are alwaysunder more strict evaluations. Therefore, they are prone to suffer from ELA undersuch a stressful environment.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Anxiety
Anxiety is one of the most acknowledged affective factors concerning languagelearning. It is a psychological construct (Horwitz, 2001). It is a complex feelingassociated with uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, insecurity, or apprehension and isintricately intertwined with self-esteem issues and natural ego-preserving fears(Sellers, 2000). In line with attitude, motivation, and self-esteem, tolerance ofambiguity, anxiety is an affective factor repeatedly discussed in educational studies.Despite its frequency, however, anxiety has not been defined consistently even untilnow.The most quoted definitions of anxiety are as follows:“Anxiety is the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness andworry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system,” (Spielberger,1983).Anxiety is “an emotional state of apprehension, a vague fear that is onlyindirectly associated with an object” (Scovel, 1978).“Anxiety refers to cognitive-affective response characterized by physiologicalarousal (indicative of sympathetic nervous activation) and apprehension regarding apotentially negative outcome that the individual perceives as impending” (Leary,1982).
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2.2 Foreign Language Anxiety
On a broad sense, language anxiety is a psychological tension that the learnergoes through in performing a learning task, and this anxiety is situation-specific.In Gardner and MacIntyre’s view, “language anxiety is fear or apprehensionoccurring when a learner is expected to perform in a second or foreign language,”(MacIntyre and Gardner, 1993). It “can be defined as the feeling of tension andapprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, includingspeaking, listening, and learning,” (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994)Domestic researchers Wang and Wan (2001) hold that language anxiety is “akind of apprehension an individual experiences when foreign language is neededhowever not sufficient”.In a ground-breaking study, Horwitz et. al. defined foreign language anxiety as“a distinctive complex of self-perception, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related toclassroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learningprocess,” (Horwitz et al., 1986), which is the most authoritative definition until now.Therefore, the author will follow this definition.
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Chapter 3 Research Methodology........ 15
3.1 Participants .... 15
3.2 Questionnaire....... 16
3.3 Interview ........ 19
3.4 Data Collection and Analysis....... 19
Chapter 4 Research Findings ......... 21
4.1 Overall Description of ELA Obtained by EMGs ....... 21
4.2 Distribution of Each Anxiety Component...... 22
4.3 Correlations between ELA and Variables ...... 29
4.4 The Interpretation of Interview.... 32
Chapter 5 Discussion ......... 34
5.1 General Situations of EMGs’ ELA .... 34
5.2 Individual Variables ......... 35
5.3 Sources of ELA.... 37
Chapter 5 Discussion
5.1 General Situations of EMGs’ ELA
This section answers the first research question: do the EMGs feel anxious inEnglish learning? If they do, what are the differences in levels of their anxiety?According to Chapter Four, EMGs are more or less interfered with ELA. Almosthalf (46.8%) are averagely anxious, and the number of high anxiety and low anxietylearners are nearly the same. The mean score of academic anxiety is remarkablyhigher than fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension. It issuggested in this study that academic learning is the most anxiety-provoking for theEMGs.The findings firstly results from the different teaching and learning style ofundergraduate and graduate study. Generally, in undergraduate study, the teacher isalways the only one who is talking in an English class while the students are listeningquietly. Even if the task-based approach is adopted, which aims at increasing learners’involvement in teaching activities, some learners still have the chance to evade thetask because a task is usually assigned in groups. However, in graduate school, as theamount of learners is limited, teachers have the opportunity to concern each student.The possibility of performances being checked at any time is considered to bestressful for most learners. Moreover, teaching activities for undergraduates center onthe teacher, and learners receive knowledge passively from the teacher, but graduatesare expected to learn independently and autonomously.
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Conclusion
Based on the survey of 124 EMGs from Nanchang University and JiangxiNormal University, the current study revealed some valuable findings that are worthnoticing.Firstly, EMGs are not immune from ELA. Academic anxiety plays a dominantrole in their overall anxiety degree, which discriminate them from other researchsubjects, followed by comprehension and fear of negative evaluation, and generalanxiety the last.Secondly, learners’ academic competence negatively correlates with their anxietydegree, that is, the higher the learners’ academic competence, the lower anxiety theyare likely to experience, and vice versa. No significant correlation between learners’anxiety degree and their personality and English proficiency is found, however,introverts in the present study tend to suffer more from ELA, and in some way,learners with high anxiety tend to be less proficient, and a moderate degree of anxietyfacilitates achievement.Finally, ELA of the EMGs stems from intrapersonal-based factors,interpersonal-based factors and skill-based factors. They are afraid of “losing face”because they are concerned too much about their self-image, and they tend to set highperformance standards from themselves in order to keep their self-image. What’smore, their performance deficit in reading, writing academic papers and searching forthe needed information contributes the most to their academic anxiety, which inducesthe most anxiety from the learners at the same time.
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Reference (omitted)