A Study On The Correlation Between Language Learning Anxiety And Learning Strategies Of Spanish Chinese Learners

Foreign language anxiety is “a significant self-perception,belief,and emotional episode associated with classroom learning that arises during the learning process of the language”(Horwits,1986).Anxiety is one of the important affective variables,which is a collection of negative affective reactions and discomfort in foreign language learning and affects learners’ choice of foreign language learning strategies.This study is based on the "Second Language Acquisition Model" proposed by Ellis(1994)and the "Social Psychological Model of Strategy Use" proposed by Mac Intyre(1994),and is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods.Four questions were investigated: whether students’ anxiety levels changed between the beginning and the end of the semester;whether students’ strategy choices changed between the beginning and the end of the semester;whether there were significant differences in strategy choices between students with different levels of anxiety;and whether there was a correlation between anxiety and the frequency of strategy use.Participants were 28 Chinese language learners from the Confucius Institute of the University of La Mancha in Castilla,Spain.The quantitative data were collected in the form of a questionnaire,which was administered twice at the beginning and at the end of the semester,containing the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS)designed by Horwitz and the Language Learning Strategy Inventory(LLSI)designed by Oxford(1990).Strategy Inventory of Language Learning(SILL)designed by Oxford(1990);data for the qualitative study were collected by means of interviews.The researcher used SPSS 22.0 to analyze the data,and the results showed that: 1)the lowest value of the pre-test was 81,while the highest value was 118;the lowest value of the post-test was 54 and the highest value was 144;the dispersion of the subjects was higher in the post-test than in the pre-test,and there were changes in the students’ anxiety levels at the beginning and at the end of the semester.2)The most used strategy at the beginning of the semester was the affective strategy,with a mean value of 3.63;the least At the end of the semester,the most used strategy was social strategy with a mean value of 3.59,and the least used strategy was memory strategy with a mean value of 3.15,indicating that students’ strategy use changed during the semester.3)At the beginning of the semester,the low-anxiety group used more strategies than the middle-anxiety group in the six dimensions of memory,cognition,compensation,metacognition,emotion,and social.And three strategies showed significant differences in memory,metacognitive,and social(p<.05).The differences were not significant in cognitive,compensatory,and affective strategies(P>.05).At the end of the semester,the strategy means were also all higher in the low-anxiety group than in the medium-anxiety group,but the differences were not significant(P>.05).4)The anxiety level and strategy use at the beginning of the semester showed a strong significant negative correlation(P<.01);the anxiety level and strategy use at the end of the semester showed a weak significant negative correlation.The study showed that 1)students are generally anxious and their anxiety levels change during the semester;2)the frequency and type of learning strategies used change during the semester;3)there are differences in the type and frequency of strategy use among students with different anxiety levels,and students with medium anxiety levels use all strategies less frequently than students with low anxiety levels;4)the higher the anxiety level,the lower the frequency of strategy use,and reducing students’ anxiety can help students to use learning strategies effectively.