The Effects Of Foreign Language Proficiency And Gender On Middle School Students' Foreign Language Anxiety

Foreign language learning is a complex learning process involving both cognitive and affective factors. The effects of affective factors on language learning have been noticed by foreign researchers for quite a long time. Related studies revealed that anxiety, one of the affective factors, is negatively correlated to language achievement.In China, although the new curriculum criterion for senior English has already brought affective factors into the range of attention of language teachers, the research on affective factors hasn't really been given enough attention. Therefore, much further research is needed to investigate the effects of anxiety on middle school senior students' foreign language learning. Because of this reason, the author conducted a quantitative study using Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. In the study, 215 senior 1 students in the Attached Middle School of Jangxi Normal University were selected as participants. Scores on final examination and gender were used as two variables.The present study has five main purposes: to investigate the general tendency of language anxiety of middle school students in China; to examine the relationship between language anxiety and achievement; to explore the differences of the effects of anxiety on language achievement between male and female middle school students; to try to differentiate the foreign language anxiety difference between students with high course grades and low course grades. The last one is to search for possible solutions to the problems arising from this study.The results show language anxiety does exist for middle school senior students and it is negatively correlated to the language achievement. On the other hand, although the boy students are more anxious than the girl students in learning English , the correlation between anxiety and their language achievement has not been found. Additionally, the results reveal that students with low grades develop more anxiety in self-confidence, oral presentation, communicating with others and learning skills than students with higher course...