A Multidimensional Study Of Foreign Language Anxiety Among Senior High School Students

Since the 1970 s,anxiety,as one of the most important affective factors affecting language development(Arnold,2005),has gradually become the main content of second language acquisition researches abroad and at home.However,most of the studies attach importance to a certain skill,lacking systematic and comprehensive research on English listening,speaking,reading,writing,and classroom anxiety.And the research subjects are mainly college or graduate students,while the research on middle school students is blank.Therefore,this study focuses on a multi-dimensional survey of senior high school students’ English anxiety,trying to analyze comprehensively the status and differences in English anxiety between different dimensions.In this study,140 high school second-year students from Lushan XX Middle School were randomly selected to study their anxiety in listening,speaking,reading,writing,and classroom learning by using quantitative and qualitative methods.The subjects were asked to fill out five questionnaires about foreign language anxiety,which are FLCAS,FLLAS,FLSAS,FLRAS,and FLWAS.These questionnaires were respectively designed by Horwitz,Elkhafaifi,Wu Wensheng,Saito,and Cheng to test students’ foreign language anxiety.After the questionnaire survey,the author conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 students and 3 teachers.The questionnaire data were analyzed by SPSS 23.0.This research attempts to answer the following four questions:(1)What is the general status of English anxiety among senior high school students in these five dimensions?(2)Are there any differences in English anxiety of senior high school students in these five dimensions?(3)Is there any difference in senior high school students’ English anxiety in these five dimensions by gender?(4)What are the causes of senior high school students’ English anxiety?There are four major findings in this research.First,the overall anxiety level of senior high school students in English learning is moderate,among which FLSA is the most prominent.Secondly,there are significant differences between English multidimensional anxiety of senior high school students.Among them,there are significant differences between FLCA and FLSA,FLSA and FLLA,FLLA and FLWA,FLWA and FLRA.Third,there is no significant difference in English anxiety between different genders.Fourthly,the causes of senior high school students’ anxiety in English learning can be divided into two categories,which are the teacher-related factors,and the student-related factors.Based on the above results,this study proposes three ways to promote the English learning of senior high school students.First,teachers and students should establish the awareness and cognition of anxiety in English learning.Second,students should strengthen their English basic knowledge training to improve their sense of confidence in learning.Third,teachers should encourage students to speak English and help them improve their English language skills to reduce their anxiety in English learning.