An Investigation Into The Correlation Between Language Anxiety And English Majors’ Willingness To Communicate Orally In Chinese EFL Classroom

Language anxiety and willingness to communicate have been perpetuated through the academia because of their practicability and academic value. This research focuses on university English majors who learn English as a foreign language(EFL) and how language anxiety is correlated to their willingness to communicate orally in English classroom.200 sophomores take part in the sample survey and fill questionnaires based on Horwitz’s Foreign Language Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) and Diane and Neomy’s Self-assessment Questionnaire(SA), to measure their language anxiety and willingness to communicate(WTC) orally in EFL classroom. The research questions are: In EFL classroom, what is the situation of participants’ language anxiety? What is the situation of their willingness to communicate? And how is participants’ language anxiety correlated to their WTC orally?The results of the usable 177 questionnaires show that first, 64.9% of participants tend to be anxious when they speak English in the classroom; Second, 31.6% of them do not show interest in communicating with their teammates and sometimes even avoid their duty when they should play an important part in interaction(pair work, group work or whole class discussion); Third, participants’ communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation are negatively correlated(significantly) to their pair work, group work and whole-class discussion activeness.