A Study On The Correlation Between Foreign Language Anxiety And English Academic Achievement Of Junior High School Students

Foreign language anxiety is one of the biggest emotional factors in foreign language learning,and it will affect learners’ learning process and results to a certain extent.According to China’s English Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education(2022),the key to improve students’ learning ability is to keep a positive learning attitude and strong self-confidence.However,China’s special national conditions make the examination represented by paper-and-pencil test still occupy a major position in primary and secondary schools.Students’ academic performance is still an important basis for the teaching evaluation,and the main reference for choosing schools for further studies.As a result,studying the impact of foreign language anxiety on junior high school students’ English learning performance is critical for their overall development,particularly in terms of maintaining their mental health.However,the existing studies at home and abroad have not reached a consistent conclusion on the correlation between foreign language anxiety and English learning achievement.What kind of correlation and the degree of correlation need to be further studied.Furthermore,junior high school students receive less attention in this type of research.Based on affective filter hypothesis and humanistic learning theory,combing and analyzing relevant literature,this study proposes the following research questions:(1)What is the degree of junior high school students’ FLA?(2)Is there significant difference of FLA among students in different genders?(3)What is the relationship between FLA and English academic achievement of junior high school students?The participants in this study were second-grade junior high school students.The questionnaire survey and interview were adopted,and the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale was used as one of the research instruments.The investigation focused on 120 learners from a middle school in Xi’an,Shaanxi Province.The following were the study’s conclusions after data analysis: At the moment,junior high school students are generally anxious about learning English,with an overall English anxiety level of medium.Girls had slightly higher anxiety levels than boys,although the difference in English learning anxiety levels between boys and girls is not statistically significant.Furthermore,the anxiety that junior high school students have about learning English is negatively correlated with their academic achievement,implying that the higher the anxiety level of students,the poorer their academic achievement.Based on the research results,the author presented some feasible advice on how to reduce negative influence of foreign language anxiety,in order to offer practical strategies to teachers to deal with negative emotions in class,and expand the foreign language teaching research using positive psychology as a guide from both a theoretical and practical standpoint.