A Study On The Effect Of Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Upon Non-English Majors’ Listening Comprehension Proficiency

As an important skill,listening has always been a challenging part for college students.Many scholars have studied listening from different perspectives.Studies have shown that listening is not only a complex cognitive activity,but also an affective activity.As a negative emotional factor,listening anxiety is an influential factor that cannot be ignored in the listening process.The primary aim of this research is to investigate the effect of foreign language listening anxiety upon EFL(English as a foreign language)listening comprehension.More specifically,attempts are made to tackle the following research questions(RQs).RQ1: Do university non-English majors experience foreign language listening anxiety?RQ2: How does their listening anxiety influence their English listening comprehension proficiency?RQ3: Which listening anxiety factors have a significant predictive effect on their listening comprehension performance?RQ4: What are the sources of their listening anxiety?To answer the research questions,an experiment was conducted.Participants are 93 non-English majors in a university in the northwestern region of China.Instruments are a Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale(FLLAS),an English Listening Proficiency Test(taken from CET-4 Listening Test)and a Background Information Questionnaire(BIQ).The participants were divided into two groups according to their listening comprehension proficiency test scores.The students who have higher scores than the average listening test scores were classified as higher proficiency group.The rest students were classified as lower proficiency group.After the test,13 students participated in the follow-up interview.Pearson correlations and Multiple Regression Analysis were conducted to analyze the test results.The major findings of the experiment are as follows:1)The non-English majors experience foreign language listening anxiety to amedium degree.2)Listening anxiety is negatively correlated with the listening comprehensionproficiency for the higher proficiency group,while there is no significantcorrelation between listening comprehension and listening anxiety for thelower proficiency group.Meanwhile,for the higher proficiency group,thereare significant negative correlations between listening comprehensionperformance and four foreign language listening anxiety factors.As thelistening test goes on,the negative effect that listening anxiety exerts onlistening proficiency will decrease.For the lower proficiency group,as thelistening test goes on,anxiety factor 3(listeners’ lack of confidence)willinfluence the listening performance moderately.3)Listening anxiety factor 3(listeners’ lack of confidence)and factor 4(listeners’ lack of listening skills)significantly predict the listeningcomprehension performance of students in the higher proficiency group.4)The sources of the foreign language listening anxiety are various.In regard tointernal sources,motivation,self-rated listening proficiency level,self-ratedgeneral English proficiency level significantly influence the foreign languagelistening anxiety level,while years on English study,frequency of practicinglistening and second language proficiency do not significantly affect foreignlanguage listening anxiety level.For the external sources of listening anxiety,listening outcome concerns,poor working memory concerns,poor phoneticknowledge concerns,lacking of listening confidence are the main sources oflistening anxiety.As supplementary date,the interview data from the studentsshows that speaking speed,listening materials’ difficulty rank and listeningmaterials’ length are the top three sources of listening anxiety.On the basis of the research results,it is hoped that this study can enrich the research results of foreign language listening anxiety and provide enlightenment for English listening teaching and learning.Implications for listening teaching and learning are: 1)teachers should attach great importance to the listening anxiety andguide students to deal with listening anxiety correctly;2)teachers ought to improve listening teaching modes and increase students’ confidence in listening;3)to relieve listening anxiety,the key is improving one’s listening proficiency.