A Comparative Study Of English Writing Anxiety Between Key High Schools Students And Ordinary High Schools Students In Yangzhou

As the focus of foreign language learning shifts from "teacher’s teaching" to "learners’ learning", emotional factors have been given more and more attention to. Anxiety is one of the most important affective variables in foreign language learning and writing anxiety is especially worthy of being concerned. Studies conducted by researchers at home and abroad show that English writing anxiety affects English writing performance significantly. Different students may show different degree of writing anxiety, and their score of writing varies accordingly. Since the score of English writing accounts for a large proportion of the total English score in English college entrance examination, it is therefore of great value to conduct a comparative study of students’English writing anxiety between key high schools and ordinary high schools.Based on the theories of Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis, Tobias’s three-stage model and Humanism, this study selected a key high school and an ordinary high school in Yangzhou: Yangzhou High School and Jiangwang High School, to find out if there are significant differences in English writing anxiety between them.The research questions are as follows:1. Is there any significant difference in terms of General English Writing Anxiety between students in key high schools and ordinary high schools in Yangzhou? If yes, what is it?2. Is there any significant difference in terms of Somatic Anxiety between students in key high schools and ordinary high schools in Yangzhou? If yes, what is it?3. Is there any significant difference in terms of Avoidance Behavior between students in key high schools and ordinary high schools in Yangzhou? If yes, what is it?4. Is there any significant difference in terms of Cognitive Anxiety between students in key high schools and ordinary high schools in Yangzhou? If yes, what is it?This study employs both quantitative and qualitative research methods:questionnaire survey and interview. The subjects of questionnaire are respective132students in Grade two from three Arts classes from Yangzhou High School and Jiangwang High School. Under the guidance of tutor, the researcher modified Cheng’s (2004) Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory in order to make it more suitable for the study. Subjects of interview are selected from these three Arts classes and the number is20respectively for each high school. Interview contents include two questions:one is about their interest in English writing and the other is about whether they are anxious about English writing and the causes.Findings show that there is a highly significant difference in General Anxiety of English writing between students in these two schools. In terms of the three factors of Anxiety, a highly significant difference is found in Somatic Anxiety and Cognitive Anxiety, while the difference in Avoidance Behavior is not significant.The above research results provide teaching and learning implications for both teachers and students. For teachers, they should develop favorable ability to cope with their emotions and never allow their occupational stress or short-temper to influence students’writing anxiety. They should help build up students’confidence and self-esteem in English writing. They should guide students to practice writing English more, and evaluate students’ English writing comprehensively and scientifically. For students, before English writing, they should learn to draw outlines; in the process of English writing, students can take a deep breath to relieve the English writing anxiety; after English writing, students need to reflect upon their writing, and do more reading after class and memorize some sparkling English words and sentence patterns for future use.