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Factors—both social and individual, which affect second language acquisition exist in great numbers. In this paper, anxiety, an important psychological phenomenon in foreign language learning will be discussed. In chapter I, the causes of different types of anxiety will be analyzed. In chapter II, its effects on foreign language learning—especially on English can be found. And some suggestions for teachers will be presented in the end.
Key words: anxiety; language classroom; affective states
Chapter I: What Causes Anxiety
Some people think anxiety is fear. To some extent, this is true. But strictly, anxiety is not ordinary fear. Psychologist views it as a nervous affective stage with fear that is aroused by the setback of confidence or the feeling of failure and compunction, when the individual anticipates not to be able to achieve the desired results or overcome the threat of obstacles. So it generally refers to an actual fear—like response or a tendency to respond with fear to any current or anticipated situation that is perceived as a potential threat to self-esteem. It differs from ordinary fear in which the threat is directed against self-esteem rather than against physical well-being, and may be anticipated or current in nature. For example, if you come across a poisonous snake, you may be frightened, but if you are about to present an academic report to your peers, you may be anxious. From the above, we can see that anxiety often, not always, originates from the threat to one’s self-esteem. The threat may really exist or it may be one’s conjecture. For example, Chinese students are usually afraid of speaking English in class. The reason may be that they really cannot speak well and the others will laugh at them if they make mistakes. It may also be that , in fact, they can do it well but in the past they suffered embarrassment when speaking in class and their self esteem has been impaired.
According to psychologists, anxiety can be divided into trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. Shovel, drawing on work in general psychology, defines trait anxiety as a “more permanent predisposition to be anxious”[1]. It is best viewed as an aspect of personality. State anxiety can be defined as apprehension that is experienced at a particular moment in time as a response to a definite situation. It is a combination of trait and situation-specific anxiety. This latter type consists of the anxiety that is aroused by a specific type of situation or event such as public speaking, examinations, or class participation. From the definitions of the these three types of anxiety, we can see that anxiety aroused in classroom belongs to the state or situation-specific anxiety, but not the trait anxiety, which is mainly related to individuals characteristics’ and not determined by outside effect. The study of correlation between measures of anxiety and learning by Horwitz and Young indicates that learners frequently experience language anxiety, a type of situation-specific anxiety associated with attempts to learn a second language and communicate in it. So what causes state or situation-specific anxiety is mainly discussed here. Horwitz studied diaries of many learners of a second language and found that Llarners competitive natures can act as a source of anxiety. Bailey analyzed the diaries of eleven learners and found that they tended to become anxious when they compared themselves with other learners in the class and found themselves less proficient. She also noted that as the learners perceived themselves becoming more proficient and therefore better able to compete, their anxiety decreased.
Fear of negative evaluation is another important source of anxiety. The effect of evaluation may come from the teacher as well as the students. In the class, some learners find the teacher’s questions threatening. For example, one of diarist of Ellis and Rathbone commented “I was quite frightened when asked questions. I don’t know why; the teacher does not frighten me, but my mind is blocked when I am asked questions. I fear lest I give the wrong answer and will discourage the teacher as well as be the laughing stock of the class maybe. Anyway, I felt really stupid and helpless in class” [2]. So in class some learners always want to do better than any other one so as to get high evaluation from the teacher and the classmates. This kind of affective stage makes them feel nerves and usually interfere their thinking and speaking. Here is some other learners feeling in class “I keep thinking that other students are better at language than I am. I got nervous when I don’t understand every word the teacher says”[3].
Another important source of anxiety is using the target language for communication. That is to say, they are afraid of using the language to communicate with people. When they have to, they show anxiety. Here is the feeling of one student in foreign language class “I tremble when I know I am going to be called in language class”[4] . Some psychologists call it communication apprehension. That is to say, the learners will feel anxious when they are speaking or listening to the second language, but feel less anxious when reading or writing the target language. Horwitz and Cop proved this point in their research “When anxiety does arise to the use of the second language, it seems to be restricted mainly to speaking or listening”[5]. Matsumotos’ learner, M, for example, displayed little anxiety but when she did it was in connection with her perceived problems in listening to and speaking English. In fact this kind of anxiety can be reduced with the improvement of language proficiency. During my teaching work I find that students with fluent speaking and excellent listening ability can communicate with others and show little anxiety. Those who are poor at these aspects often show high anxiety when speaking before others.
In another way, Aubusel classified anxiety into normal anxiety and neurotic anxiety. In normal anxiety, the source of threat may be internal or external. The key point is that threat is objectively capable of impairing self-esteem. The response to the threat is appropriate and proportionate to the objective degree of danger facing the individuals’ self-esteem. In neurotic anxiety, on the other hand , the essential source of the threat to self-esteem does not lie outside self esteem itself. The neurotic anxiety overacts to a new situation with signs of fear and further impairment of self-esteem. The reaction is disproportionate to the actual degree of danger facing the person in question.
Chapter II: Effect of anxiety on language learning
The relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning is complicated. However, there is no doubt that anxiety is a key motivational element in classroom behaviors and achievements.
Speaking in another language can be very stressful for Chinese students, especially in class in the presence of others because Chinese students are comparatively quiet and shy and they are afraid of “losing face” if they make pronunciation or grammar mistakes.
Anxiety hinders communication in the foreign language classroom in various ways:
First, Students are restrained by their fear of failure. This often leads to a loss of concentration as their sense of anxiety turns attention away from the task they have been set in. In this aspect, three types of distractions interfere with the performance of highly anxious individuals, First they worry a lot about their performance, the consequences of failure, and how well they are doing relative to others. Keeping worrying about this their thinking can’t be active and diffuse. Second, they experience emotional interference in the form of physiological arousal that produces such symptoms as a “racing” heart and an unset stomach. And third, highly anxious people often attempt to compensate for their apprehension by taking a “safe” approach to problem solving that leads to rigid and unimaginative responses. Their answers to questions are usually simple “Aya”, “Oh” or some nonsensical words. When they communicate with people they seldom start the conversation first or keep silent only and sometimes give a smile or a nod to show their politeness.
Second, students who experience intense anxiety often lose heart. Their lack of concentration affects their performance and their anxiety levels are further raised. They experience cycles of anxiety and failure that eventually discourage them. This anxiety causes the student to want to have no contact with the source of the anxiety, that is , the language. The student will try to avoid using the language. This in turn causes continuing failure which results eventually in impaired language learning. To the students as a whole, it can also contribute to a further loss in self esteem. The students then will have no confidence in learning and the foreign language will be abandoned. One of my students is a good example of this. In junior middle school, he experienced severe embarrassment in speaking English in class because of his poor pronunciation; for instance, he pronounced the word “like” as “[lek]”. In my class, he tried his best to avoid speaking English. His English was far behind the other students. This proves that a student may have several forms of behavior when he/she is motivated by a desire to avoid further anxiety and embarrassment. They may try to escape from the language class either actively by dropping the subject, symbolically by stopping to learn their work and dropping so far behind the others that to all intents and purposes they are no longer with the group, or passively by stopping to participate in active language work in the classroom, hoping in this way to escape notice and “sit it out” with the least possible embarrassment to themselves.
On the other hand , students may react positively to anxiety. Although most studies find that anxiety impairs school achievement, some research shows that anxious students may occasionally perform better than nonanxious students. The student is anxious because he/she thinks that they have not grasped the language well or is not as successful as other students in the class. This leads to the students making an effort to reduce the source of anxiety. The student may increase his/her effort in order to catch up with the other students and to compare with them. Therefore, the students become more competitive. As a result of this competitiveness, the student works harder, gradually becoming more successful and increasing his/her self-esteem.
When students experience anxiety, the nature of the tasks they are set in plays an important role in their performance. On tasks of low complexity or on tasks in which the individual is already skilled, anxiety seems to facilitate performance; on tasks of high complexity or on tasks where the individual is not well practiced, anxiety appears to lower the level of performance. In the language classroom, when students do exercises such as making sentences according to a model , pattern drills, answering simple questions, reading texts aloud, and so on anxiety may facilitate performance because anxiety helps the students to concentrate on these simple tasks. However in doing tasks such as making a speech certain topic, listening comprehension and speed-reading, anxiety often impairs students performance.
Although there are positive aspects to anxiety among foreign language learners, as shown above, research has found that on the whole students with low level of anxiety often do better than students with high level of anxiety.
One research into the effect of anxiety on learning was done like this: The students are divided into 5 groups according to their ability to do the task. The results, which change in different groups as the measures of anxiety change, show that in the case of students with average intellectual ability marks are low when anxiety is high while in the case of the minority of students (that is, the few good students) their marks increase when anxiety is high. This suggests that low anxiety is better for the majority of students. Thus, high anxiety combined with high intellectual ability tends to facilitate learning, but when it is combined with low or average intellectual ability, high anxiety tends to restrain learning.
Chapter III: Suggestions for teachers
Based on the above analysis, anxiety has different effects on different students. Accordingly, the teacher should use different approaches with different students as far as possible. Above average students need to be challenged and can generally accept tasks where they will not necessarily achieve perfect scores. However with more typical students, the teacher should make great efforts to reduce anxiety.
As most students in schools are of average intellectual ability, the key problem is to support and encourage them adequately. In my opinion, different techniques are required to solve this problem.
Section I: Raising the students’ self-esteem
Self-esteem is determined by people close to us and how they treat us. In language learning, the teacher can be crucial in this process. If the teacher regards a student as rather unintelligent and dull, this may lead to a loss of self-esteem and therefore poor performance. But if the teacher has a good opinion of the students intellectual ability, the students will not assume that he/she lacks ability. If they fail a test, they might think tat it is because the task is too difficult or because they haven’t not worked hard enough, not because they are stupid. Therefore, they will work harder. The experience of success is also very important in building self-confidence. For example, a student whose confidence has been discouraged by embarrassment at making what appeared to be foolish response based on lack of comprehension of previous learning can overcome the restraining straining effect of anxiety by making correct language responses aloud in group recitation and thus finding it easier later to give a correct response alone. If he gives a good performance, the teacher should make good use of the chance to praise him. Then student then will be full of confidence in his or her later work. Success may give a new direction to the learned motivation of these students: they may develop a desire to learn for its own sake this language which has provided these rewarding new experiences or at least a determination to work hard to remain in this class where such satisfactions are attainable.
Section II: Greatly reduce the students’ anxiety in a relaxed classroom atmosphere
This atmosphere depends on various factors, but the teacher plays an important role. First of all , the teacher should show a sincere concern for students and express an interest in them. He/she should be kind and patient in helping the students, making them know he/she respects them, no matter how many errors they make. Injecting humor into activities can also relax students and diminish their anxiety. The student “who feels at ease in the classroom and likes the teacher may seek out more intake by volunteering and may be more accepting of the teacher as a source of input”[6]. It is also important for the teacher to build up good co-operation students themselves. In the new textbook of senior middle school there are a lot of practice that need to be finished in pairs or groups. Only when the students get on well with each other can they be in god mood during their cooperation. A student will not be so shy and anxious in his /her behavior in class if he / she has a good relationship with others. Also, the activities in class should be interesting and varied. There should always be room for games, songs and puzzles in the classroom. The classroom activities should not always be designed for students only. The teacher should take part in it, play a role and set a good example. Thus the students may feel that you are a member of them and will be active and relaxed in class. Once I gave a lesson in an open class. The students were from a different grade, so they didn’t know about me and I was not familiar with them either. At first I feared that the students might be nervous and not cooperative. During the process of the “dialogue-class”, I took part in every activity as far as possible. When action out the dialogue, I first asked some of them to be my partner. When one of them finished their task I was always the first to give applause. When some volunteers went to the blackboard to act, I encouraged them with my smile. Soon the hall was filled with relaxed atmosphere and applauses. Some pairs did appear shy and nervous but the cheering of their classmates after they spoke out a good sentence or even a good word encouraged them to go on with their work. They all did well in this class, gradually showing no anxiety.
Section III: Reducing the difficulty of tasks to reduce anxiety
As mentioned, the nature of a task plays an important role in students performance. Teaching students step by step is essential in the process. To be more specific, the teachers should first define the aims of the course so that requirements are clearly understood. Then , students should be provided with study guides which will help them identify what material they need to learn. Information should be given models at each stage covering all four communicative skills. All of those measures should ensure that students adapt their learning strategies and respond to the subject matter without unsuitable anxiety. What’s more, different tasks should aim at different students. Some tasks, such as making a speech on a certain topic, which are difficult to carry out for students with low language proficiency, unless they volunteer, should be finished by good students. While the tasks that are easy to do, such as reading the text or answering some simple questions should be offered to students whose English is poor so as to improve their ability. And this won’t affect their learning.
Conclusion
Anxiety is an important factor influencing students performance in the foreign language classroom. As a key motivational element in learning, it has both a positive and a negative effect. On the whole it impairs students learning. This article has explored a variety of techniques and approaches that language teacher can use diminish anxiety, but it is clear that this is an area requiring further research.
Notes:
[1]Scovel, T. 1978. The effecy of affect on foreign language learning: a view of the anxiety research; Language Learing28: 129-42.
[2]Horitz, E, W. Horwitz, and Cope. 1986, Foreign language classroom anxiety; Modern Journal 70: 125-32.
[3]Ellis, R.1989. Classroom learning styles and their effect on language acquisition: a study of two learners; System 17:924-62.
[4]Horitz, E, W. Horwitz, and Cope. 1986, Foreign language classroom anxiety Modern Journal70: 125-32.
[5]Rod Ellis. 1999. Learners’ affective states; The Study of Second Language Acquisition 480-37 Educational Publisher of Shanghai.
[6]Krashen,S. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Bibliography:
[1]Hanson R.A, Motivation Education. New York: Academic Press. 1977.
[2]Vander Z, Educational psychology in Theory and practice, Random House 1984.
[3]Shao Ruizhen, Educational Psychology, Shanghai Education Press. 1988.
[4]Xu Shengsan, psychology, Henan Education Press. 1987.
[5]Scolve, T. The effect of affect on foreign language learning: a view of the anxiety research. Language Learning. 1978.
[6]王银泉:《外语学习焦虑及其对外语学习的影响》,外语教学与研究,外语教学与研究出版社,2001-2。
[7]. 章兼中:《外语教育学》,浙江教育出版社,1997。
Key words: anxiety; language classroom; affective states
Chapter I: What Causes Anxiety
Some people think anxiety is fear. To some extent, this is true. But strictly, anxiety is not ordinary fear. Psychologist views it as a nervous affective stage with fear that is aroused by the setback of confidence or the feeling of failure and compunction, when the individual anticipates not to be able to achieve the desired results or overcome the threat of obstacles. So it generally refers to an actual fear—like response or a tendency to respond with fear to any current or anticipated situation that is perceived as a potential threat to self-esteem. It differs from ordinary fear in which the threat is directed against self-esteem rather than against physical well-being, and may be anticipated or current in nature. For example, if you come across a poisonous snake, you may be frightened, but if you are about to present an academic report to your peers, you may be anxious. From the above, we can see that anxiety often, not always, originates from the threat to one’s self-esteem. The threat may really exist or it may be one’s conjecture. For example, Chinese students are usually afraid of speaking English in class. The reason may be that they really cannot speak well and the others will laugh at them if they make mistakes. It may also be that , in fact, they can do it well but in the past they suffered embarrassment when speaking in class and their self esteem has been impaired.
According to psychologists, anxiety can be divided into trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. Shovel, drawing on work in general psychology, defines trait anxiety as a “more permanent predisposition to be anxious”[1]. It is best viewed as an aspect of personality. State anxiety can be defined as apprehension that is experienced at a particular moment in time as a response to a definite situation. It is a combination of trait and situation-specific anxiety. This latter type consists of the anxiety that is aroused by a specific type of situation or event such as public speaking, examinations, or class participation. From the definitions of the these three types of anxiety, we can see that anxiety aroused in classroom belongs to the state or situation-specific anxiety, but not the trait anxiety, which is mainly related to individuals characteristics’ and not determined by outside effect. The study of correlation between measures of anxiety and learning by Horwitz and Young indicates that learners frequently experience language anxiety, a type of situation-specific anxiety associated with attempts to learn a second language and communicate in it. So what causes state or situation-specific anxiety is mainly discussed here. Horwitz studied diaries of many learners of a second language and found that Llarners competitive natures can act as a source of anxiety. Bailey analyzed the diaries of eleven learners and found that they tended to become anxious when they compared themselves with other learners in the class and found themselves less proficient. She also noted that as the learners perceived themselves becoming more proficient and therefore better able to compete, their anxiety decreased.
Fear of negative evaluation is another important source of anxiety. The effect of evaluation may come from the teacher as well as the students. In the class, some learners find the teacher’s questions threatening. For example, one of diarist of Ellis and Rathbone commented “I was quite frightened when asked questions. I don’t know why; the teacher does not frighten me, but my mind is blocked when I am asked questions. I fear lest I give the wrong answer and will discourage the teacher as well as be the laughing stock of the class maybe. Anyway, I felt really stupid and helpless in class” [2]. So in class some learners always want to do better than any other one so as to get high evaluation from the teacher and the classmates. This kind of affective stage makes them feel nerves and usually interfere their thinking and speaking. Here is some other learners feeling in class “I keep thinking that other students are better at language than I am. I got nervous when I don’t understand every word the teacher says”[3].
Another important source of anxiety is using the target language for communication. That is to say, they are afraid of using the language to communicate with people. When they have to, they show anxiety. Here is the feeling of one student in foreign language class “I tremble when I know I am going to be called in language class”[4] . Some psychologists call it communication apprehension. That is to say, the learners will feel anxious when they are speaking or listening to the second language, but feel less anxious when reading or writing the target language. Horwitz and Cop proved this point in their research “When anxiety does arise to the use of the second language, it seems to be restricted mainly to speaking or listening”[5]. Matsumotos’ learner, M, for example, displayed little anxiety but when she did it was in connection with her perceived problems in listening to and speaking English. In fact this kind of anxiety can be reduced with the improvement of language proficiency. During my teaching work I find that students with fluent speaking and excellent listening ability can communicate with others and show little anxiety. Those who are poor at these aspects often show high anxiety when speaking before others.
In another way, Aubusel classified anxiety into normal anxiety and neurotic anxiety. In normal anxiety, the source of threat may be internal or external. The key point is that threat is objectively capable of impairing self-esteem. The response to the threat is appropriate and proportionate to the objective degree of danger facing the individuals’ self-esteem. In neurotic anxiety, on the other hand , the essential source of the threat to self-esteem does not lie outside self esteem itself. The neurotic anxiety overacts to a new situation with signs of fear and further impairment of self-esteem. The reaction is disproportionate to the actual degree of danger facing the person in question.
Chapter II: Effect of anxiety on language learning
The relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning is complicated. However, there is no doubt that anxiety is a key motivational element in classroom behaviors and achievements.
Speaking in another language can be very stressful for Chinese students, especially in class in the presence of others because Chinese students are comparatively quiet and shy and they are afraid of “losing face” if they make pronunciation or grammar mistakes.
Anxiety hinders communication in the foreign language classroom in various ways:
First, Students are restrained by their fear of failure. This often leads to a loss of concentration as their sense of anxiety turns attention away from the task they have been set in. In this aspect, three types of distractions interfere with the performance of highly anxious individuals, First they worry a lot about their performance, the consequences of failure, and how well they are doing relative to others. Keeping worrying about this their thinking can’t be active and diffuse. Second, they experience emotional interference in the form of physiological arousal that produces such symptoms as a “racing” heart and an unset stomach. And third, highly anxious people often attempt to compensate for their apprehension by taking a “safe” approach to problem solving that leads to rigid and unimaginative responses. Their answers to questions are usually simple “Aya”, “Oh” or some nonsensical words. When they communicate with people they seldom start the conversation first or keep silent only and sometimes give a smile or a nod to show their politeness.
Second, students who experience intense anxiety often lose heart. Their lack of concentration affects their performance and their anxiety levels are further raised. They experience cycles of anxiety and failure that eventually discourage them. This anxiety causes the student to want to have no contact with the source of the anxiety, that is , the language. The student will try to avoid using the language. This in turn causes continuing failure which results eventually in impaired language learning. To the students as a whole, it can also contribute to a further loss in self esteem. The students then will have no confidence in learning and the foreign language will be abandoned. One of my students is a good example of this. In junior middle school, he experienced severe embarrassment in speaking English in class because of his poor pronunciation; for instance, he pronounced the word “like” as “[lek]”. In my class, he tried his best to avoid speaking English. His English was far behind the other students. This proves that a student may have several forms of behavior when he/she is motivated by a desire to avoid further anxiety and embarrassment. They may try to escape from the language class either actively by dropping the subject, symbolically by stopping to learn their work and dropping so far behind the others that to all intents and purposes they are no longer with the group, or passively by stopping to participate in active language work in the classroom, hoping in this way to escape notice and “sit it out” with the least possible embarrassment to themselves.
On the other hand , students may react positively to anxiety. Although most studies find that anxiety impairs school achievement, some research shows that anxious students may occasionally perform better than nonanxious students. The student is anxious because he/she thinks that they have not grasped the language well or is not as successful as other students in the class. This leads to the students making an effort to reduce the source of anxiety. The student may increase his/her effort in order to catch up with the other students and to compare with them. Therefore, the students become more competitive. As a result of this competitiveness, the student works harder, gradually becoming more successful and increasing his/her self-esteem.
When students experience anxiety, the nature of the tasks they are set in plays an important role in their performance. On tasks of low complexity or on tasks in which the individual is already skilled, anxiety seems to facilitate performance; on tasks of high complexity or on tasks where the individual is not well practiced, anxiety appears to lower the level of performance. In the language classroom, when students do exercises such as making sentences according to a model , pattern drills, answering simple questions, reading texts aloud, and so on anxiety may facilitate performance because anxiety helps the students to concentrate on these simple tasks. However in doing tasks such as making a speech certain topic, listening comprehension and speed-reading, anxiety often impairs students performance.
Although there are positive aspects to anxiety among foreign language learners, as shown above, research has found that on the whole students with low level of anxiety often do better than students with high level of anxiety.
One research into the effect of anxiety on learning was done like this: The students are divided into 5 groups according to their ability to do the task. The results, which change in different groups as the measures of anxiety change, show that in the case of students with average intellectual ability marks are low when anxiety is high while in the case of the minority of students (that is, the few good students) their marks increase when anxiety is high. This suggests that low anxiety is better for the majority of students. Thus, high anxiety combined with high intellectual ability tends to facilitate learning, but when it is combined with low or average intellectual ability, high anxiety tends to restrain learning.
Chapter III: Suggestions for teachers
Based on the above analysis, anxiety has different effects on different students. Accordingly, the teacher should use different approaches with different students as far as possible. Above average students need to be challenged and can generally accept tasks where they will not necessarily achieve perfect scores. However with more typical students, the teacher should make great efforts to reduce anxiety.
As most students in schools are of average intellectual ability, the key problem is to support and encourage them adequately. In my opinion, different techniques are required to solve this problem.
Section I: Raising the students’ self-esteem
Self-esteem is determined by people close to us and how they treat us. In language learning, the teacher can be crucial in this process. If the teacher regards a student as rather unintelligent and dull, this may lead to a loss of self-esteem and therefore poor performance. But if the teacher has a good opinion of the students intellectual ability, the students will not assume that he/she lacks ability. If they fail a test, they might think tat it is because the task is too difficult or because they haven’t not worked hard enough, not because they are stupid. Therefore, they will work harder. The experience of success is also very important in building self-confidence. For example, a student whose confidence has been discouraged by embarrassment at making what appeared to be foolish response based on lack of comprehension of previous learning can overcome the restraining straining effect of anxiety by making correct language responses aloud in group recitation and thus finding it easier later to give a correct response alone. If he gives a good performance, the teacher should make good use of the chance to praise him. Then student then will be full of confidence in his or her later work. Success may give a new direction to the learned motivation of these students: they may develop a desire to learn for its own sake this language which has provided these rewarding new experiences or at least a determination to work hard to remain in this class where such satisfactions are attainable.
Section II: Greatly reduce the students’ anxiety in a relaxed classroom atmosphere
This atmosphere depends on various factors, but the teacher plays an important role. First of all , the teacher should show a sincere concern for students and express an interest in them. He/she should be kind and patient in helping the students, making them know he/she respects them, no matter how many errors they make. Injecting humor into activities can also relax students and diminish their anxiety. The student “who feels at ease in the classroom and likes the teacher may seek out more intake by volunteering and may be more accepting of the teacher as a source of input”[6]. It is also important for the teacher to build up good co-operation students themselves. In the new textbook of senior middle school there are a lot of practice that need to be finished in pairs or groups. Only when the students get on well with each other can they be in god mood during their cooperation. A student will not be so shy and anxious in his /her behavior in class if he / she has a good relationship with others. Also, the activities in class should be interesting and varied. There should always be room for games, songs and puzzles in the classroom. The classroom activities should not always be designed for students only. The teacher should take part in it, play a role and set a good example. Thus the students may feel that you are a member of them and will be active and relaxed in class. Once I gave a lesson in an open class. The students were from a different grade, so they didn’t know about me and I was not familiar with them either. At first I feared that the students might be nervous and not cooperative. During the process of the “dialogue-class”, I took part in every activity as far as possible. When action out the dialogue, I first asked some of them to be my partner. When one of them finished their task I was always the first to give applause. When some volunteers went to the blackboard to act, I encouraged them with my smile. Soon the hall was filled with relaxed atmosphere and applauses. Some pairs did appear shy and nervous but the cheering of their classmates after they spoke out a good sentence or even a good word encouraged them to go on with their work. They all did well in this class, gradually showing no anxiety.
Section III: Reducing the difficulty of tasks to reduce anxiety
As mentioned, the nature of a task plays an important role in students performance. Teaching students step by step is essential in the process. To be more specific, the teachers should first define the aims of the course so that requirements are clearly understood. Then , students should be provided with study guides which will help them identify what material they need to learn. Information should be given models at each stage covering all four communicative skills. All of those measures should ensure that students adapt their learning strategies and respond to the subject matter without unsuitable anxiety. What’s more, different tasks should aim at different students. Some tasks, such as making a speech on a certain topic, which are difficult to carry out for students with low language proficiency, unless they volunteer, should be finished by good students. While the tasks that are easy to do, such as reading the text or answering some simple questions should be offered to students whose English is poor so as to improve their ability. And this won’t affect their learning.
Conclusion
Anxiety is an important factor influencing students performance in the foreign language classroom. As a key motivational element in learning, it has both a positive and a negative effect. On the whole it impairs students learning. This article has explored a variety of techniques and approaches that language teacher can use diminish anxiety, but it is clear that this is an area requiring further research.
Notes:
[1]Scovel, T. 1978. The effecy of affect on foreign language learning: a view of the anxiety research; Language Learing28: 129-42.
[2]Horitz, E, W. Horwitz, and Cope. 1986, Foreign language classroom anxiety; Modern Journal 70: 125-32.
[3]Ellis, R.1989. Classroom learning styles and their effect on language acquisition: a study of two learners; System 17:924-62.
[4]Horitz, E, W. Horwitz, and Cope. 1986, Foreign language classroom anxiety Modern Journal70: 125-32.
[5]Rod Ellis. 1999. Learners’ affective states; The Study of Second Language Acquisition 480-37 Educational Publisher of Shanghai.
[6]Krashen,S. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Bibliography:
[1]Hanson R.A, Motivation Education. New York: Academic Press. 1977.
[2]Vander Z, Educational psychology in Theory and practice, Random House 1984.
[3]Shao Ruizhen, Educational Psychology, Shanghai Education Press. 1988.
[4]Xu Shengsan, psychology, Henan Education Press. 1987.
[5]Scolve, T. The effect of affect on foreign language learning: a view of the anxiety research. Language Learning. 1978.
[6]王银泉:《外语学习焦虑及其对外语学习的影响》,外语教学与研究,外语教学与研究出版社,2001-2。
[7]. 章兼中:《外语教育学》,浙江教育出版社,1997。