A Study On The Chiniese Listening Anxiety And Strategies Of Chinese Learners

Krashen(1982),a famous linguist,put forward the affective filtering hypothesis.In1986,Horwitz put forward the "foreign language learning anxiety".Referring to previous studies and according to the actual teaching situation,the author investigates students in the Business Confucius Institute in Athens on their Chinese listening anxiety and employment of listening strategies.In this study,47 Chinese learners from the Confucius Institute of Business in Athens,Greece,were selected as the subjects.The questionnaires consist of students' personal basic information,questionnaire of listening anxiety in Chinese and the questionnaire on students' listening learning strategies.The correlation between the students' anxiety and learning strategies together with some specific factors such as the gender,native friends were listed in the study to be tested.Two private interviews on both students and teachers were given and the answer was summed up in Chapter four.The results of the study showed that students who have their Chinese language proficiency in middle level enjoy the highest level of anxiety when they are doing Chinese listening exercises,followed by those at the lower level and those at the higher level.Students' Chinese listening level,gender and the situation that whether they have family and friends who are native speakers of Chinese to help correct errors have significant effects on their listening anxiety.Female students' anxiety level is much higher than male students.Learners who have friends or family with Chinese as mother tongue have much lower anxiety level than learners without native partners.There is little correlation between students' listening anxiety and their age.Students with low listening proficiency use low-skill strategies and cognitive strategies most frequently.Students with intermediate and high listening level use cognitive strategies most frequently.Emotional strategies are the least employed among students of all levels.The higher level Chinese listening anxiety students experience,the more learning strategies they employ.The more frequent low-skill learning strategies,cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies they use,the more anxious they are.There is no direct relationship between the use of affective strategies and the level of listening anxiety.Low-anxious students use cognitive strategies most frequently.The author gave out some suggestions for Chinese teachers and learners based on the results of the study,hoping to help Chinese learners alleviate their listening anxiety.