| With the development of humanistic psychology in 1950 s and 1960 s,more and more attention have been paid to learners’ "affective variables" in language learning by foreign language educators and researchers.Of all the "affective variables" in language learning,anxiety probably is the most pervasive obstruction in foreign language learning.Foreign language anxiety(FLA)not only reduces the efficiency of foreign language learning in the classroom,influences the students’ achievement in English tests,but also weakens the students’ confidence in foreign language learning and makes the students feel afraid of language learning.So the researchers at home and abroad focus more and more attention on the studies of foreign language anxiety.The studies on FLA began in the 1970 s in western countries,with Horwitz,Scovel,Gardner,MacIntyre,Kleinmann,Young,etc being the representatives.They have made great achievements in both FLA theory and FLA empirical study.In contrast with that,Chinese educators and researchers began their study on foreign language anxiety as late as the end of 20 th century.The research of the past decades is focused on the empirical studies on language anxiety of university students.But few studies have been done on college students’ foreign language anxiety.College education has made a fast development in China in the past decades,which aims to train high-qualified and applied technical employees to meet the needs of industries and enterprises.The employees’ English ability is usually highly concerned in these industries and enterprises,especially those foreign trade ones.But in fact,the English level of college students is really poor and cannot meet the requirement of those industries and enterprises.So the college students are usually under great pressure and have great anxiety in learning English.But less attention has been paid to the study on college students’ foreign language anxiety than that of those university students.So it is necessary to study on the foreign language anxiety of college students and provide some solutions to reduce the students’ anxiety and give some suggestions to college English teachers in order to really improve college students’ English ability.So,after reviewing a lot of articles on foreign language anxiety study at home and abroad,the author began this empirical investigation of language anxiety.The study selects 323 college students as subjects.The author carries on the quantitative research by using Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS)which was designed by Horwitz et.al in 1986.The data collected were analyzed around three main questions.Then the author conducts individual interviews among 60 volunteer subjects to supplement and testify the results of quantitative study.The results show that: 96.28% students are anxious;students from counties are more anxious than those from countryside and from cities;girl students are more anxious than boy students;lower students are more anxious than mediate and top students;non-English major students are more anxious than English major students.Through individual interviews the researcher found that communication apprehension anxiety is supposed to be relatively on top of the obvious barriers to English learning and there are six main causes of foreign language anxiety,with “communication between teachers and students” “classroom activity” and “language test” being the top three.The results also find that language teachers are believed to play a vital role in diminishing students’ foreign language anxiety.The study finds that foreign language anxiety is really popular among college students and influences their English learning a lot.There’s a close relation between FLA and learning achievements.Although many factors may have caused the foreign language anxiety of the students,the results also find that language teachers are believed to play a vital role in diminishing students’ foreign language anxiety.So this study also gives some suggestions to teachers on how to develop students’ interest on English,how to develop good teaching methods,how to communicate better with students,how to encourage students,how to improve teachers’ professional ability and how to teach according to students’ different levels and different needs and try to reduce the students’ anxiety and create a low-anxiety and supportive foreign language study environment,helping the students overcome language anxiety so that the students can improve their study effect and English practical ability. |
