Effects Of Politeness Strategies On Students' Classroom Anxiety

Language acquisition in classroom setting requires active language training and communication between students and teachers.Classroom anxiety is one of the important factors that affect learners' willingness to communicate.The use of politeness strategies in class can protect students' face and thus relieve students' anxiety.This study compares the students' classroom anxiety level in novice teachers' class and expert teachers' class in junior middle school and further explores the application of politeness strategies by the two types of teachers,so as to investigate the influence and mechanism of the latter on the former.The aim is to improve the quality of teacher talk,especially for novice teachers,and help them to embark on teacher professionalism.Based on the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson,Krashen's affective filter hypothesis and holistic education theory,this paper aims to address the following three research questions:(1)Is there a significant difference in students' English classroom anxiety between novice teachers' and expert teachers' class? If so,in what ways?(2)What are the aspects of face threats students might feel in English class and in what degrees do they care about these aspects?(3)What are the similarities and differences on the application of politeness strategies between novice teachers and expert teachers?Two novice teachers,two expert teachers and 206 students in their classes are selected as the subject of the study.Through student questionnaire and classroom observation,the results show that:(1)there is a significant difference in students' English classroom anxiety between novice teachers' and expert teachers' class.And students' English classroom anxiety level in novice teachers' class is higher in the dimension of general anxiety,communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation.(2)there are five face threats students might feel in English class: 1)the threat of making public speech because of lacking confidence in their own Englishproficiency;2)the threat of self-evaluation drop because of peer comparison;3)the threat of other's negative evaluation because of making mistakes in front of the whole class;4)the threat of imposed talk because of extreme inadequacy in psychology and language preparation;5)the threat of feeling embarrassed and psychologically unsecure because of inability to follow the teacher The fourth aspect is the strongest and the fifth aspect is the mildest,and the degrees of the other three aspects are similar.(3)Both novice teachers and expert teachers use a large number of positive politeness strategies in the classroom,but novice teachers use fewer types of positive politeness strategies and their language forms show lower diversity than expert teachers.As for the negative politeness strategies,expert teachers use them more frequently and cover a wider sphere than that of novice teachers.Expert teachers know how to convey their evaluation and desires of communication with students in a more roundabout way.And they can employ classroom incidents to lighten classroom atmosphere while novice teachers' teaching wisdom in this aspect has yet to be strengthened.