A Study On The Correlation Between Pronunciation Anxiety And Pronunciation Learning Strategies Of English Majors

Anxiety,as one of the most important affective factors affecting second language acquisition,has been widely paid attention to by scholars in recent years.However,most of the studies focus on foreign language classroom anxiety,listening anxiety,oral anxiety,reading anxiety and writing anxiety,and there are few studies concerning pronunciation anxiety.In addition,it is believed by experts in the field of second language acquisition that learners’ affective states are correlated with learning strategies.Therefore,this study takes English majors as subjects to gain insight into their pronunciation anxiety,their use of pronunciation learning strategies,the differences in the use of pronunciation learning strategies among students with different pronunciation anxiety levels,the correlation between pronunciation anxiety and pronunciation learning strategies and so on.In the present study,173 English majors from China University of Petroleum(East China)are surveyed by virtue of both quantitative and qualitative methods.The research instruments are composed of questionnaires(background information questionnaire,pronunciation anxiety scale and pronunciation learning strategy scale)and interview.Firstly,160 valid questionnaires are collected;secondly,SPSS26.0 is used to analyze the valid data collected;finally,9 students are interviewed.The results show that:(1)English majors experience a moderate level of pronunciation anxiety;the pronunciation anxiety decreases with the increase of the grade;freshmen’s pronunciation anxiety is significantly higher than that of juniors.(2)English majors’ use of pronunciation learning strategies is at a medium level;freshmen’s use of pronunciation learning strategies is significantly higher than that of sophomores and juniors.(3)There are significant differences in the use of affective strategies,social strategies,metacognitive strategies,and memory strategies between low-anxiety students and high-anxiety students.(4)Pronunciation anxiety is significantly negatively correlated with affective strategies,metacognitive strategies,social strategies,memory strategies and cognitive strategies;however,it is weakly positively correlated with compensation strategies.Based on the above findings,some relevant implications are put forward,so as to help relieve students’ pronunciation anxiety,improve their use of pronunciation learning strategies,which are beneficial for the improvement of pronunciation proficiency.