An Empirical Study On English Listening Anxiety Of Non-english Majors In Newly-built-college

For the last thirty years, research findings both at home and abroad have revealed that most Englishlearners are likely to be anxious in the listening process; language anxiety, as one of the key factors toevaluate English learners’learning performance, to some degree, is relational with their achievement.The author of this thesis, when she was teaching in a newly-built-college, also has found that themajority of students have the appearance of anxiety in her listening classes.This thesis attempts to probe into the listening anxiety of the non-English freshmen of anewly-built-college in Shanxi province, aiming at approaching the following several questions: (1)What is the general situation of listening anxiety of the non-English freshmen and its influence onlistening proficiency? (2) What are the personal factors that lead to their listening anxiety andcorresponding strategies? (3) What measures can be adopted to reduce non-English freshmen’s listeninganxiety?Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be adopted in this thesis. The subjects are 163non-English freshmen of the year 2011. Research tools involve questionnaire, Listening achievements,classroom observations and interviews. The questionnaire includes background information, listeninganxiety and listening strategies questionnaire. Data collected from that will be analyzed though SPSS17.0. Listening achievements choose their listening scores obtained in the first semester of their finalexams. What’s more, the author of this thesis makes five classroom observations of three undergraduateclasses every other week, and makes interviews with six students among them.Through collation and analysis of the data, findings show that: there is certain listening anxietyamong non-English freshmen in newly-built colleges; there is a positive correlation between listeninganxiety and listening proficiency, listening strategies used and learning motivation; listening strategywas positively correlated with listening performance of self-assessment and motivation; there aresignificant differences of listening proficiency among majors.Implications of this thesis are: English listening teacher should realize the existence of listeninganxiety among students and instructs them to know the status of listening anxiety; also puts forward thecorresponding countermeasures to the traits of listening anxiety of the non-English major freshmen in newly-built-college.