The Causes Of Language Anxiety

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract: In China, it is a common phenomenon to see students behaving anxiously in the English class, which will influence the final learning achievements. Bailey (1983) explored the correlation between anxiety and learners’performance and concluded that a high level of anxiety could have adverse effects on student’s FL performance. Therefore, the anxiety in the English class of senior high school deserves attention. This paper will mainly analyze the causes of students’ anxiety, and give some effective measures to reduce their anxiety, among which formative assessment should be given great attention.

Key words: Language anxiety; formative assessment;

1. Introduction

The research on second language acquisition has been developed with times. The research focusing on Language teaching has shifted from the study of how to teach students to how to learn for students, with particular attention to explore the influence that students’psychological factors such as learning motivation, learning attitude and learning anxiety have on learning outcomes. Among those emotional variables, anxiety is considered to be one of the most critical psychological variables. Much research (e.g., Bailey, 1983; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Macintyre & Gardner, 1994; Young, 1991), especially in western countries, has been conducted to find the relationship between anxiety and achievement in the learning of different foreign languages. Most studies (e.g., Horwitz, 1986; Macintyre & Gardner, 1994) arrived at a conclusion that anxiety and achievement are negatively correlated. With the development of China, high school students, who are still at a comparatively low level of English proficiency and thus more easily experience a feeling of uneasy suspense (Rachman, 1998), are received more and more attention by most researchers. Since the newly published National Curriculum Standard for English firstly embraced affect in the overall objective of English teaching in 2001, there is a growing attention to the importance of such factors. Therefore, the issue of reducing high school students’English language learning anxiety has a very important practical significance. Thus, a lot of methods have been proposed to relive students’ anxiety. Formative assessment, an important evaluation method which is though to be a acceptable way, is neglected by some English teachers because of the exam-oriented education. In this paper, the author will bridge this gap to demonstrate the importance of formative assessment by analysis some former researches and find out some formative assessment ways to enhance English teaching and learning effect.

2. Literature review

2.1. The definition of language anxiety

There are many definitions of language anxiety form different perspectives:

From an affective perspective, language anxiety is defined as "an unpleasant emotional state or condition which is characterized by subjective feelings of tension apprehension, and worry and by activation or arousal the automatic nervous system."(Spielberg1983).

Horwitz (1986) defined foreign language anxiety as a unique and complex self-awareness, beliefs, emotions, and behavior which is concerned with classroom language learning and produced in the language learning process.

From cognitive side, Arnold (2000) observes that "anxiety was quite possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructed the learning process. It was associated with negative feelings, such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension and tension. "Either from the perspective of psychology or cognition, language anxiety is considered as a negative thing in the above definition.

2.2. Study on Chinese Senior High School Students’English Learning Anxiety

2.2.1. Research on the Correlation of Language Anxiety with English Learning

A large proportion of the studies in Chinese context show that English anxiety has a negative correlation with English learning. Chen Suhong(2006) described the correlation as a ∽ -shape model which was unlike an inverted ∩ -shape model as the previous study have explored. She explained it as follows: when English classroom anxiety rises at the beginning, English achievement remains stable, but when it rises further to a certain degree, achievement begins to fall, and when it rises further to the utmost, achievement remains stable again.

2.2.2. Research on Sources of the Language Anxiety

Zhou Huijuan(2009) found that foreign language anxiety mainly came from the family background, the students’ language experience including the instructor, the teaching method and some other factors. Jin Jiamei’ findings put down the language anxiety to the following factors: unharmonious relationship between the teacher and students, negative evaluation of the teacher, improper classroom activities and test. Lu Hongye(2007) pointed that independent variables of classroom performance ,relationship with teachers and classmates, self-confidence in English learning were the major factors influencing student’s English language anxiety.

2.3. The classification of language anxiety

Usually anxiety is classified into trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. Trait anxiety, as Scovel (1978) noted, refers to "a more permanent predisposition to be anxious" while state and situation-specific anxiety are usually experienced in relation to some particular event or situation (Brown, 2001). Language anxiety, the research target of this paper, belongs to the last category, which refers to the apprehension experienced when a situation requires the use of a second language with which the individual is not fully proficient (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993).

2.4. The causes of language anxiety

In order to find ways to relive students’ anxiety, it is necessary to find out the causes of language anxiety

According to Young (1991), there are six potential causes of language anxiety which include personal and interpersonal, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language teaching, instructor-learner interactions, classroom procedures and language tests.

However, up to date, findings by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) have been the most influential. They identified three causes of language anxiety, that is, communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation.

3. Factors of Senior High School Students’English Learning Anxiety

There are many components which influence students’ language learning anxiety, in this chapter, factors of senior high school students’English learning anxiety will be analyzed in the aspects of students themselves, and teachers.

3.1. From the perspective of students

3.1.1. Students’personality

English is a highly practical subject. Learners in the learning process must be heavily involved in the output and practice of English. According to the New Curriculum, the cultivation of Intercultural Awareness in English is also important. Teachers are requested to let students have a fresh understanding of cultures of English-speaking countries, put cultural factors into language learning, make them realize the importance of interculture, so as to bring up more Cross-cultural Communicators with cultural awareness to achieve these teaching goals, high school English class requires a lot of communication. However, under the influence of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese students are generally shy, more introverted, conservative and too concerned about their face-saving. During adolescence, middle school students became quiet, even if the outgoing students become convergent in the classroom. They pay particular attention to save face in front of the public, students with poor English worried about their negative evaluation of language skills from teachers and students, and students with good English skills are worried to be accused of showing off by other students, so students in the classroom often have such as shyness, stage fright and embarrassment and other psychological state of anxiety, they are afraid of participating in

learning activities, and they are easily getting nervous when social situations occurred in the classroom, which will result in the arise of anxiety.

3.1.2. Students’self-esteem

In Xiong and Tan’s study (2007)，experimenter are asked to test their language competence. 67% of the students have a low evaluation over their language ability, and are not satisfied with their performance in class; among those, there are considerable part who are actually good English learners; from which shows that Chinese students from senior high are unconfident with their English learning, they tend to underrate their ability. After carefully analyzing, there are three reasons. Firstly, traditional English teaching take no account of communicative ability, thus students have little chance to use the target language. Secondly, influenced by traditional Chinese culture, their personality development is also limited, in most cases, approval will get only when the students showed humility and respectful. Last important point is negative evaluation is more received no matter from parents or teachers or the students themselves. Teachers correct students’error at any time, students laugh at those of low levels carelessly. Students cannot receive encouragement during their grow-up, virtually their self-esteem increasingly get lower, and cause anxiety. This case happens more frequently especially in the rural English classrooms.

3.2. From the perspective of teachers

The teachers play important roles which will definitely influence the students’ English learning achievements. The teachers, as the initiators and promoters of interaction, their behaviors have great impact on students’learning effect, which is beyond dispute.

There are those who think the teachers’task is only to correct the errors made by students, classroom interactive activities will spoil the class disciplines, teachers should dominate the class, and students should listen to the teacher and take notes. In English teaching, teachers excessively emphasize the accuracy of communication in English, so they often correct grammatical errors sharply. This kind of teaching inevitably makes the classroom atmosphere dull, students timid, and reluctant to use English. Students think that the more they use, the greater the chance of error will be. In this case, students are easily to produce anxiety and fear,‘because‘Harsh error correction, ridicule and the uncomfortable handling of mistakes in front of a class...related to language anxiety’(Rebecca L. Oxford, in Essay 4: 65). Ultimately the language input and output will be affected, and the due teaching effect will be failed.

4. Findings and suggestion

No matter form the students’ part or the teachers’ part, we can see teachers’ teaching beliefs and strategies will undoubtedly affect students’ learning anxiety. This paper will focuses on the teachers’ effect on students’ anxiety and give some suggestion.

According to the study made by Jingjing Cui (2011) which indicated that the high school students indeed had the feeling of anxiety in their English classrooms. Moreover, through the computation of means and standard deviations of each kind of anxiety, it was found that students’ fear of negative evaluation, the mean of which reached 3.1831, was especially serious. Therefore, form this study we can see it is of great significance to explore suitable evaluation to reduce students’ fear.

Form the above information referred, we can get this conclusion that language anxiety is produced during the learning process and teacher plays an important role in this process. So what exactly the teachers can do is to adopt suitable strategies to deal with students’ anxiety. Assessment method is though to be a vital strategy which is of great significance. And formative assessment is recommended by many scholars.

4.1. Formative assessment

Formative assessment, as is clearly stated in the New Curriculum Criteria, formative assessment, a significant component of English teaching and learning activity, provides all - around reflection covering students’performance, progress, attitude and strategy in English learning (Zhu Muju,2002). It includes lots of evaluation forms: portfolios, interviews, questionnaires, self- assessment, and peer- assessment, just to name a few.

The rationales of formative assessment are the multi – intelligence theory, cognitive theory and humanistic theory of language teaching and learning. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory (Gardner, 1993) argues that human beings possess distinct intelligence that manifests themselves in different skills and abilities. In other words, we each have different combinations and various strengths and weaknesses in the intelligence that makes each person unique.

Cognitive theory holds that language is not a form of behavior; it is an intricate rule- based system. It is language competence that enables a language learner to produce language (Wang Qiang, 2000: 4 - 6).

Humanistic approaches emphasize the importance of the inner world of the learner and place the individual ’s thoughts, feelings and emotions prior to all human development. These are aspects of the learning process that are often neglected, yet they are so important if we are to understand human learning at large.

Formative assessment is more valuable for day-to-day teaching when it is used to adapt the teaching to meet students’ needs. Formative assessment helps teachers to monitor their students’ progress and to modify the instruction accordingly. It also helps students to monitor their own progress as they get feedback from their peers and the teacher. Students also find opportunity to revise and refine their thinking by means of formative assessment.

It helps teachers to check the current status of their students’ language ability, that is, they can know what the students know and what the students do not know. It also gives chances to students to participate in modifying or planning the upcoming classes (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). Participation in their learning grows students’ motivation to learn the target language. It also raises students’ awareness on their target languages, which results in resetting their own goals. In consequence, it helps students to achieve their goals successfully as well as teachers be the facilitators to foster students’ target language ability.

In classroom, short quizzes, reflectional journals, or portfolios could be used as a formative assessment (Cohen, 1994).

What this king of assessment do shows that it can help the teachers and students to perform better during language learning process, which will consequently decrease the possibilities of negative evaluation ,as a result , lessen students’ anxiety.

4.2

The experiment and questionnaire survey made by Chen Shunmeng(2007) suggest that the people who are questioned think that using formative assessment can enhance the sense of achievement, promote mutual understanding between the students ,and train the team cooperation spirit. It reflects that the students' interest in learning English has improved. It can also reduce the anxiety in learning, and learning motivation and self-confidence are increased, and increase in the number of cooperation opportunities between students, cultivate the students' team spirit.

Another experiment(Chen Yiwen,2008) tries to find out whether formative assessment is more effective in strengthening students’learning motivation and self-confidence than the traditional summative assessment in a secondary school .

After the experiment, Students’ attitude toward English learning is noticeable, which shows that formative assessment does arouse students’ learning motivation and build their self -confidence. They begin to believe they can make it. Based on the data collected from the experiment, the experiment shows how formative assessment stimulates students’learning motivation. In self- assessment, students get the chance to evaluate their own learning activity and their scores given to themselves are counted in the final test, so in this way they get motivated when they see responsibility lying in themselves rather in external factors. Portfolios and classroom observation is adopted in the evaluation process, Students get lots of chances to show what they have learned and how they have made progress, which shows that success lies in the factors that can be controlled rather in random factors and which greatly facilitates motivation as well.

Though this experiment didn’t show that formative assessment can reduce anxiety directly, it demonstrated this function from the other side.

4.3. Suggestion

Form these two experiments we can see formative assessment indeed has the function of lessen students’ anxiety, here are some tips of the implement of it for the teachers:

4.3.1. Provide both oral and written instructions when possible.

It will double a student's chances of completing the task correctly, thereby lowering anxiety.

4.3.2. Refrain from orally correcting students.

Oral correction is generally not very effective, and it has the negative side-effect of creating a classroom climate where students are reluctant to share ideas and answers out of a fear of being wrong.

4.3.3. Carry out cooperative learning and have acceptable attitude towards students’ language errors.

Cooperative learning can not only create a positive classroom atmosphere, but also take care of individuals, especially those low self-esteem, quiet, introverted students, provide them with more opportunity to exchange ideas, give them enough time to think, prepare and practice, express their opinion freely when facing familiar companion. Meanwhile, we should bear the attitude of tolerance, gentle way to correct language errors committed by students, avoiding to hurt students’self-esteem or cause other students to ridicule

4.4.4. Feedback in time

Along with their improvement of class participation, chances of gaining acceptance from classmates and teachers increase, experiences of success are strengthened, confidence is promoted, and therefore the anxiety level will be relieved easily.

5. Conclusions

Anxiety does influence students’ achievements in middle school English classroom, as an English teacher, it is our duty to help students with their language anxiety. Formative assessment is a sound method. But there are also some problems in the implement of formative assessment, such as time-consuming, implement scale, and so on. It is strongly hoped that the studies on it will go further.