A Study On English Learning Anxiety Of Second-year Non-English Major College Students

In recent decades, one of the key studies in SLA is the individual differences that contributeto different outcomes in language learners. Of all the factors that affect students’ learning,language learning anxiety is an indispensable factor and has attracted many researchers’ attention.Up to now, it is considered as an important component and has been a hot concern for manyresearchers.This study aims at investigating university students’ learning anxiety in English learning. Itattempts to explore the following four issues:1) the general state of English learning anxietyamong the second-year non-English major undergraduates;2) the distribution of the three aspectsof English classroom anxiety (communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negativeevaluation);3) the differences in English learning anxiety between male and female students.4)the relationship between students’ English learning anxiety and their language proficiency. Thisstudy adopts two instruments, a questionnaire (The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) designed by Horwitz,1986) and an interview. These instruments are used for a surveyon English learning anxiety of150non-English major undergraduates in Jiangxi NormalUniversity. The study utilizes a series of data analysis methods including descriptive analysis,Pearson correlation analysis and multiple comparisons with the help of SPSS14.0.After analyzing the data from the questionnaires and interviews in the study, it is found that:1) college students all experience English learning anxiety to some extent；2) Among the threecomponents of English classroom anxiety, test anxiety ranks highest, followed by fear of negativeevaluation and communication apprehension ranks lowest；3）Males and females experienceslightly but not significantly different level of learning anxiety in English learning；4) The Englishlearning anxiety of high proficiency students differs from that of low proficiency students andstudents’ English learning anxiety level is negatively correlated with their English proficiencylevel.On the basis of the findings above, five implications are suggested for English teachers andstudents in their English class. In order to help students to reduce learning anxiety in English learning, teachers should, first of all, help students recognize their language anxiety. They shouldalso promote cooperative learning and create harmonious atmosphere in class. In addition,teachers should also organize their class teaching activities with a hope of enhancing students’confidence. Finally, to avoid discouraging students’ interest in English class, teachers shouldimprove their way of error correcting.