A Survey Of Listening Anxiety And Its Affecting Variables Of Senior High School Students

Anxiety,as an important emotional factor affecting language input,has always been concerned by people.However,most of the researchers at home and abroad mainly focus on the listening anxiety as a whole and its correlation with other variables.And most of the research subjects are usually junior high school students and the undergraduates,and few studies have combined the listening anxiety with its influencing factors.Therefore,this study will select the senior high school students as the subjects by questionnaire survey and interview,and get to know the current situation of English listening anxiety of senior high school students.The main goal of this paper is to investigate the English listening anxiety of senior high school students.255 senior high school students from Experimental Middle School Affiliated to Huaibei Normal University take part in the questionnaire surveys.The instruments adopted here are the questionnaire survey and personal interview.With the help of statistical software,we will get to know the current situation of senior high school students’ English listening anxiety.Based on this principal goal,these following questions will be discussed in this study:1.What is the present situation of senior high school students’ English listening anxiety? Is the English listening anxiety of senior high school students different in gender,choice of science and arts or listening level?2.What are the factors that affect senior high school students’ English listening anxiety? Is the affecting variables of listening anxiety different in gender,choice of science and arts or listening level?After the investigation and interview,we have the following findings: 1.At present,high school students feel anxious and worried in the process of listening,and the listening anxiety is at the moderate level and the mean value of listening anxiety is2.8127.According to the data of SPSS,there is no statistical difference in gender and choice of science and arts.In the aspect of different levels of listening proficiency,we find that listening anxiety is different from group to group.The mean value of listening anxiety of students with the lower listening proficiency is much higher than that of students with the medium listening proficiency.And the mean value of listening anxiety of students with the medium listening proficiency is higher than that of students with the high listening proficiency.2.The study finds that the main factors affecting English listening anxiety are learners,teachers,listening materials and other factors.As the result shows,there is no significant difference between genders in the factors of learners,teachers and listening material variables.While in the factors of other affecting variables,there is significant difference.However,this study finds statistically significant difference in affecting variables between students with different levels of listening proficiency in the factors of listening material and learners variables.But no significant difference is found between teachers and other variables.There is no significant difference between students of science and those of arts in the factors of learners,listening materials and other affecting variables,while the teacher variables does have.Thus,based upon the outcome of the surveys and the personal interview,these following teaching guiding suggestions are put forward: 1.Teachers should verify the listening materials and enrich students’ knowledgeable reservoirs;2.Teachers should guide students to recognize the listening anxiety correctly,and pay attention to their physical and mental health.3.Teachers should strengthen their cooperation and exchanges,and promote students’ development 4.Teachers should control the difficulty of the listening material and meet the needs of students with different levels of listening proficiency.This study plays a role in exploring the current situation of the senior high school students’ English listening anxiety and its affecting variables,which will guide the teachers to lay emphasis on the English listening anxiety.Meanwhile,the author hopes that this study can provide some guidance for the later teaching practice and improve the teaching quality,which can help students to reduce their English listening anxiety.