A Study On English Listening Anxiety Of Art Major Students In Independent Colleges

As one of the affective factors, anxiety has great impact on language learning for the learners. In recent years, anxiety has drawn great attention from many scholars. However, a majority of the studies about English listening anxiety just focus on English major or non-English major students, but paying rare attention to art major students in independent colleges. For the English learners majoring in art in independent colleges, the negative impact of English listening anxiety could not be overlooked.This study attempts to investigate the listening anxiety of 100 art major students in Lijiang College, an independent college of Guangxi Normal University. The English Listening Anxiety Questionnaire is based on Kim’s (2000) FLLAS. There are five dimensions in the questionnaire:English proficiency, characteristics of listening material, background knowledge, listening skills and learners’ personality.The four research questions addressed in this study are:1.What is the overall state of listening anxiety of art major students in independent colleges? 2. Is there any significant difference in English listening anxiety between male and female students? 3. Is there any significant difference in English listening anxiety between successful students and less successful students? 4. Is there any significant difference in English listening anxiety between art major students of independent colleges and non-English students of the previous studies?The results in this study show that:1. Listening anxiety does pervade among art major college students in Lijiang College.2. The main sources for listening comprehension anxiety are poor English proficiency, difficulties of listening material, unfamiliarity with background knowledge, lack of listening skills and learners’personal characteristics.3. Male subjects experience a slightly higher level of listening anxiety than females, but there is no significant difference on English listening anxiety in gender. 4. Less successful subjects experience a slightly higher level of listening comprehension anxiety than successful subjects, but there is no significant difference in English anxiety between them 5. There is no significant difference in listening anxiety between art major students and non-English major students.To reduce the negative influence of the listening anxiety on art major students and improve their overall English teaching quality, this study puts forward some suggestions for teachers and students. For teachers, they should try to create a relaxing atmosphere in the listening class to reduce learners’ anxiety, arouse learners’ interests in English and help them build confidence in English, train the learners to apply listening strategies and master listening skills, help learners get familiar with background information by referring related culture, instruct efficient learning ways for learners to improve their listening proficiency, and make some adaptations of the teaching material according to learners’ actual proficiency. For art major students, they should strengthen their basic knowledge of English and improve their English proficiency, apply English listening strategies, set up proper goals and form a good habit of English learning.