A Study On The Effects Of Teachers’ Feedback Discourse On Students’ Classroom Anxiety In Junior High School English Classroom

Anxiety is an important part of affective factors,and its influence on students’ second language learning cannot be ignored.Many studies have found that most students are anxious in English classes.At the same time,anxiety also has an influence on the motivation and effect of students’ language learning.Teachers are the organizers,guides,and assessors of classroom teaching.All kinds of feedback that teachers give to their students in class influence students’ anxiety to varying degrees.Scholars at home and abroad have done a large amount of research on students’ classroom anxiety and teachers’ feedback discourse,and have achieved fruitful results.However,there are few studies linking the two,and most of the research subjects linking the two are college students and senior high school students,but less junior high school students.This study takes 4 English teachers and 218 students in their class from a junior high school in Hohhot as the research subjects,and uses classroom observation,questionnaire and interview methods to conduct research and analysis.Based on Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis,the Birmingham School’s Classroom Discourse Model,and Humanistic Theory,this paper mainly discusses the following questions:（1）What is the current situation of teachers’ feedback discourse in junior high school English classes?（2）What is the current situation of students’ classroom anxiety in junior high school English classes?（3）What are the effects of teachers’ feedback discourse（positive feedback discourse and negative feedback discourse）on students’ classroom anxiety in junior high school English classes?The research results are as follows.Firstly,from the general usage of teachers’ feedback discourse,teachers’ positive feedback discourse is used more frequently,and it is dominated by praise and repetition.Although there are many types of negative feedback discourse,its general usage frequency is lower than that of positive feedback discourse,and it is dominated by implicit negative feedback discourse.Secondly,among the218 students participating in the questionnaire,most of them are at the medium anxiety level.The next are the low anxiety level and the high anxiety level.Thirdly,teachers’ positive feedback discourse never or rarely causes students’ anxiety.Some appropriate positive feedback discourse has a positive effect on alleviating and reducing students’ English classroom anxiety.Teachers’ different types of negative feedback discourse can cause students’ classroom anxiety in varying degrees.Among the negative feedback discourse often used by teachers,explicit negative feedback discourse is more likely to cause or aggravate students’ anxiety than implicit negative feedback discourse.Among them,the teachers’ critical feedback and explicit correction are most likely to cause or aggravate students’ English learning anxiety.This paper discusses the effects of teachers’ feedback discourse on students’ classroom anxiety in junior high school English classes,hoping to provide junior high school English teachers with some teaching references and suggestions,and to prompt junior high school English teachers to scientifically and effectively use different types of feedback discourse to alleviate or reduce students’ classroom anxiety in order to help students learn English better.Finally,the author illustrated the limitations of this paper and recommendations for future research.