A Study Of Vocabulary Learning Anxiety In College English Learning

As an important factor influencing the college English learning, English language learning anxiety has always been the focus of attention of numerous linguists and instructors. Although some relevant research has indicated that there is a negative correlation between language anxiety and vocabulary learning, vocabulary learning anxiety has hardly been studied systematically and separately as reading anxiety, listening anxiety, writing anxiety, communicative anxiety or test anxiety. Vocabulary learning anxiety can be defined as the feeling of tension and apprehension that the learners have during their foreign / second language vocabulary learning.This study presents the results of the empirical examination of the effect of the college English vocabulary learning anxiety and the English language class anxiety on college non-English majors'English proficiency. The data come from two measures of anxiety—the English Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (ELCAS) and the College English Vocabulary Learning Anxiety Scale (CEVLAS), and a background questionnaire administered to 318 non-English major students. After the descriptive data analysis, the Pearson correlation, independent T test and linear regression analysis, it is found: 1) students are fully aware of the importance of college English vocabulary teaching and learning, but they demonstrate anxiety in it because of the lack of strategies and approaches in learning; 2) students demonstrate moderate to high level of anxiety in their college English vocabulary learning which is significantly higher than in their English language class, communication, negative evaluation and their test, and the differences are proved to be significant in statistics; 3) girl students report higher levels in all the anxieties except the test anxiety than boy students, but the differences are not significant; 4) students from different grades only demonstrate great differences in their college English vocabulary learning anxiety, and only the difference between the sophomores and seniors is significant in statistics; 5) significant and moderately high correlations have been found between college English vocabulary learning anxiety and other anxieties, which proves they are separate but related phenomena; 6) college English vocabulary learning anxiety is significantly and negatively correlated with the CET-4 scores, but this correlation is lower than that between the English language class anxiety and the CET-4 scores; 7) boy students report significant and negative correlation between their anxiety and CET-4 scores while girl students only report moderate and negative correlation between their anxiety (except the test anxiety) and CET-4 scores, whose test anxiety is moderately and positively correlated with their scores; 8) the college English vocabulary learning anxiety ranks in the middle in predicting the English language achievement, less significant than the total English language class anxiety and the communication apprehension but more significant than the fear of negative evaluation and the test anxiety.In all, the study on the college English vocabulary learning anxiety plays an important role in reducing the vocabulary learning anxiety and the English language class anxiety, thus improving the efficiency in college English vocabulary learning. But further research is required in the sources of this anxiety and strategies to reduce it.