An Investigation Into The Correlation Between Language Anxiety And Willingness To Communicate Of English Majors

Anxiety is one of the most concerned affective variables in the field of second language acquisition.With clear conceptualization of language anxiety put forward by Horwitz,Horwitz and Cope(1986),research in this field has begun to flourish.The studies of willingness to communicate in L2 were mainly put forward by MacIntyre et al.,and the improvement of students' willingness to communicate was proposed as the main teaching goal of language instruction.The present study based on the theoretical foundation of the model of second language learning and communication proposed by MacIntyre and Charos(1996)and the heuristic model of variables influencing WTC put forward by MacIntyre,Clément,D?rnyei and Noels(1998).In addition,present study was motivated by three research questions:(1)What are the current state and influencing factors of English majors' language anxiety?(2)What are the current state and influencing factors of English majors' willingness to communicate?(3)What are the relationships between language anxiety,willingness to communicate in English and their influencing factors? The participants of present study were 196 English majors in college offoreign languages,Inner Mongolia Normal University.There were three data collection instruments used in present study:(1)Willingness to Communicate in a Foreign Language Scale developed by Baghaei(2013);(2)Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale designed by Horwitz,Horwitz and Cope(1986);(3)English majors' focused essay concerning the situation in which they feel anxious,they are most willing to communicate or they are least willing to communicate.The results of present study showed that:(1)English majors were experiencing a moderate level of language anxiety(M=95.76,SD =18.56).There were six factors revealed under the factor analysis of FLCAS: fear of inadequate performance,speech anxiety,negative evaluation,insufficient language competence,lack of self-confidence and uncomfortableness with native speakers.In addition,the results of present study indicated that English majors had higher levels of anxiety in terms of insufficient language competence(M = 3.16),uncomfortableness with native speakers(M = 3.13)and speech anxiety(M = 3.08).Furthermore,The results of one-way ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference of language anxiety across four grades(F(3,192)= 2.066,p >0.05).The content analysis of the qualitative data unraveled the effects of language anxiety and the main factors causing students' language anxiety:contextual factors,interaction pattern,test anxiety and individual factors;(2)English majors were experiencing moderate level of willingness tocommunicate(M=94.21,SD=13.61).In addition,they were more willing to communicate with native speakers in English(M=4.96).The results of one-way ANOVA showed that there were significant difference of WTC between freshmen and juniors,as well as freshman and seniors(F(3,192)= 5.113,p < 0.05).Freshmen had the highest level of WTC across four grades(M= 98.27).The content analysis of the qualitative data unraveled four broad clusters pertaining to willingness to communicate: contextual factors,interlocutors,topics,and classroom activities;(3)Pearson correlation analysis was carried out.The results of it showed that there were significantly positive relationships between language anxiety and its six factors.Furthermore,language anxiety had significantly stronger correlation with speech anxiety,fear of inadequate performance,insufficient language competence,and negative evaluation;English majors' willingness to communicate with different receivers(classmates and instructors,native speakers and nonnative speakers)in different contexts(school context and societal context)were positively related with each other;there was significantly negative relationship between language anxiety and willingness to communicate(r =-.476,p < 0.05).English majors who have lower level of language anxiety might correspond to higher level of willingness to communicate.In addition,the results showed that language anxiety had a stronger relationship with WTC in school context than in societal context and the students who werelack of self-confidence and had lower level of language competence,along with higher level of speech anxiety as well as apprehension of negative evaluation might have lower level of willingness to communicate in English.Finally,based on the research results,the author put forward relevant pedagogical implications for improving willingness to communicate and reducing language anxiety:(1)Establish a harmonious teacher-student relationship;(2)Optimize teaching design of foreign language class;(3)Create a friendly foreign language classroom environment.Furthermore,the limitations of present research and suggestions for future researches were also discussed.