An Empirical Study On English Classroom Anxiety Of New Students Of Senior One

In our country English learning in senior classes is a special situation where learning is self-threatening and anxiety can easily emerge. The anxiety arising from English classes directly affect the learners’ absorption of language input and langrage output, thus impeding the process of English learning. In English classes students tend to become nervous, which result in their poor performances and sense of failure, all leading to the degree of their anxiety. Worse still, the added anxiety in turn has a great effect on the efficiency of learning. So we may safely draw the conclusion that the anxiety in senior English classes is likely to be the cause as well as the result of poor performances of English learning. Studies indicate that English learning in classes is more stressful and tenser than learning other subjects and students easily give away the symptom of anxiety.As far as the new students of Senior One are concerned, the possibility of anxiety towards English learning among them is much higher than that of students in Senior Two or Senior Three. However, when referring to relevant information, the writer finds that people don’t attach much importance to anxiety in Senior One English classes. What’s more, the present studies on the anxiety in English classes are not comprehensive and systematic and empirical studies are not sufficient.In order to investigate the causes and degree of English classroom anxiety for these new students and effect on these new students’ learning, the author uses Horwitz’ FLCAS questionnaire to conduct a research on129students coming from Senior One in Yunxian middle school about their English classroom foreign language anxiety. The author collects and analyzes the data from questionnaires and interviews with some teachers and students. The author also carries out a teaching experiment to find out solution to reduce their anxiety. The author finds the following results:Students show different degrees of English classroom anxiety and students suffering from medium or above degrees of anxiety make up the largest proposition. There are different causes to form anxiety in English classroom, the unnatural connection between junior textbooks and senior textbooks, the lack of learning interest and insufficient confidence, low adaptation of living and learning environments, the fear of assessment from teachers and classmates, tension arising from uneasy communication, the fear of exams, unfriendly teacher and students’ relationship, unsafe classroom atmosphere and so on. On the whole, English classroom anxiety has a bad effect on students’learning, the less anxiety degree students show, the better their learning performance will be. So we can’t ignore that English classroom anxiety is impeding students’ learning. However when some measures are taken, it can be effectively controlled. Considering the actual situation of the two classes, the tentative measures taken in the process of research prove to be useful and efficient. When students’ classroom anxiety is reduced to a certain degree, their learning acquisition will correspondingly be improved.