语言焦虑对中学生英语听力的影响.doc

Abstract
Since the 1970s, the second language acquisition has gradually aroused people’s interest，and great progress has been made in this field．Many teachers and researchers have paid much attention to learners’ affective variables，shifting from the focus on external factors of teaching and learning to internal factors of learners．Then, the problem of emotion has become the focus of attention on the progress of language acquisitions. In the study of language acquisition, many researchers have paid much attention to foreign language anxiety. Foreign language anxiety, as one of the most important affective variables，is a kind of complicated mental phenomenon specific to language learning．The studies in the past three decades have repeatedly showed that foreign language anxiety has a negative effect on language learning process and is one of the best predictors in accounting for individual differences in language learning success．
Therefore，on the premise of previous studies, this thesis try to explore the effect of language anxiety on middle school students’ listening comprehension and the tragedies to facilitate language anxiety, the relation between listening anxiety and the factors of individual learners and the cause of listeners’ listening anxiety, which helps learners have a better understanding of their language anxiety level and provides useful evidence for teachers to improve their listening teaching and learning.

Key words: language anxiety; listening comprehension anxiety; strategies for alleviating anxiety

中文摘要

20世纪70年代以来，第二语言习得研究的重点从关注学习者外部因素转到了对学习者内部因素的研究，即对造成学习结果差异的学习者个体因素的研究。语言学习中的情感问题由此也成为研究者们关注的焦点。在对情感因素的研究中，许多研究者把目光投向了对外语学习焦虑情绪的研究。外语学习焦虑是在语言学习过程中产生的一种显著的自我意识，信念和情感情结，是与外语语境有着特殊关系的紧张和畏惧感觉。国外30年的研究结果表明：语言焦虑时预测学习者学习成败与否的关键因素之一；焦虑与学习者的成绩呈一定负相关。因此，在吸取前人研究成果的前提下，本文尝试分析初中生英语学习者的听力焦虑情绪对听力理解的影响，以及焦虑情绪在不同性别，学习英语时间长短是否有差别也做了探讨；通过对听力焦虑问卷以及课堂焦虑问卷的形式，进一步探讨语言焦虑对听力的影响和消除焦虑的方法。

关键词：语言焦虑；听力焦虑；解决方法

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Introduction
Language anxiety and its effect on English learning have been a hot topic worth people’s attention. Reviewing some researchers’ studies, we can find that they mainly focus on the following topics: the definition and characteristics of language anxiety, the effect of language anxiety on language proficiency, the effect of language anxiety on the study of single language introduction, such as the effect on oral English and the effect of language anxiety on writing, and so on. Many people do not consider that reading comprehension associates with language, however, the researchers claim that the language anxiety will come if one is not familiar with the materials or culture, which will influence the score. Not many researchers study on the correlation between language anxiety and listening proficiency, not to mention the articles about it. Krashen(1992)suggested that language anxiety will come easily in the progress of listening comprehension and not many studies showed that language anxiety actually influence learners’ listening.
The purpose of the present study is to find out the correlation between language anxiety and listening anxiety and how they influence learners’ listening proficiency. It is hoped that the result of the present study can provide insights and guidance for teaching and learning.
This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the research topic. Chapter Two reviews the theory of listening comprehension and language anxiety; its cause; embodiment as well as the effect on learning. Chapter Three then focuses on the methodology of the study and displays the research questions, subjects, procedures and instruments. Chapter Four demonstrates the results of the analysis of collected data. Chapter Five further discusses in more depth the results presented in the preceding chapter and conclude some strategies for alleviating language anxiety and the limitations of the present study and the suggestions on further research.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1Itroduction
A brief introduction has been presented in the preceding section．According to the arrangement of the thesis，this chapter will give a literature review of the topics concerned，which includes the definition and classification of listening comprehension, studies on foreign language anxiety．Contributions and shortcomings of the previous findings will be reviewed so as to give a general picture of FLLAS studies in the second language acquisition research area．
LC: listening comprehension
FLLAS: foreign language listening anxiety scale
FLCAS: foreign language classroom anxiety scale

2.2. Listening Comprehension
2.2.1 Definition of Listening Comprehension
According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics(2000：269)，listening comprehension(LC)means “the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language．According to Dai Junreng, LC refers to “the activity of human brain processing the information heard consciously and actively”(1998，quoted from Yah Jm,2000：54)．And Larry Vandergrifl(1999)viewed that“listening is an active and complex process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds，understand vocabulary and grammatical structures，interpret stress and intonation, retain what is gathered in all of the above，and explain it within the limmited time as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance”．O'Malley and Chamot (1989)defined it as the followings: “Listening comprehension is viewed theoretically as an active process in which individuals focus on selected aspects of aural input, construct meaning from passages，and relate what is heard to existing knowledge”．All the definitions above have one thing in common that listening comprehension is an active process that demands the listener’s full involvement．

2.2.2 The Classification of Listening Comprehension
（i） Intensive Listening
Intensive listening is a listening practice which requires students to understand every word and the exact meaning of the article with no missing words and uncertainty of the meaning.
（ii） Extensive Listening
Compared with intensive listening, extensive listening is relatively easier, which only aims at understanding the general meaning of the whole article. Losing a word, a phrase or even a sentence is acceptable only if it does not influence the comprehension of the text.
（iii） The Combination of Intensive Listening and Extensive Listening
It is very important for people to learn English well, not only improving the level of listening comprehension but also enabling students to learn more about lexis and grammar. Intensive listening exercise demands students to have a good grasp at the foundation of English and to be persevering in learning it. While extensive listening exercise, which helps students meet the requirements of examination and cultivate a sense of English, aims at cultivating students’ ability of understanding the general meaning, so, extensive listening is based on intensive listening.
Intensive listening and extensive listening affect each other, so the most effective way is combining both. When we practice listening comprehension, we must do it according to the rule: intensive listening first and extensive listening second. Do this way unremittingly, and you will make a great progress in listening.

2.3 Language Anxiety
2.3.1 Definition of Foreign Language Anxiety
Varieties of definitions of language anxiety have been suggested in the fields of psychology and education. Davis and Hutching (1981) proposed that anxiety associated with two elements, “worry” and “emotionality”. Emotionality is related to disagreeable sensations that usually last for a short time while worry relates to cognitive components, such as negative expectations and difficulties. Later, Levitt (1980) and Sarason (1980) suggested that anxiety could occur when a threat is not delineated clearly and that anxiety should be proportional to the threat.
Among the affective explanations，recent attention has been paid to the role of anxiety, which is pervasive in language learning and considered to be one of the most important and influential affective variables．FLA is linked directly to performing in the target language, so it is different from the one in general sense．Arnold(1999：8)holds that language anxiety is possibly the affective factor that most pervasively，obstructs the language learning process．From second language acquisition perspective，MacIntyre and Gardner(1989，see Arnold，2004)see FLA as ‘'the apprehension experienced when a situation requires the use of a second language with which the individual is not fully proficient；which has been characterized by ‘'derogatory self-related cognitions……feelings of apprehension, and psychological responses such as increased heart rate”．Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope(1986：31) conceptualize FLA as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions，beliefs，feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process．”In other words，it refers to the anxiety occurring when a learner is exposed to a foreign language situation．It ranks high among factors influencing second language acquisition, regardless of whether the setting is informal (learning language outside the classroom)or formal(inside the language classroom)．

2.3.2 Causes of Foreign Language Listening Anxiety
There have been only a few studies about why student listeners feel anxious. Scarcella and Oxford (1992) mentioned that language learners are likely to feel anxious when the listening materials are too difficult or unfamiliar to them. Listening comprehension is a combination of listening and understanding. It requires the listeners to use various knowledge of technique, if a student does not have a good command of language, he will be affected by the speed of listening comprehension which will make him feel nervous, in other words, language anxiety. Later, Oxford (1993) considered that the learning goals and beliefs of listeners are a source of anxiety too, mentioning that anxiety frequently occurs when students feel that they cannot handle a listening activity. For example, listeners tend to assume that they have to understand every word in the listening material, though they do not have to do so to understand what they hear in their native language. This unrealistic goal causes greater anxiety, which prevents learners from “transferring even the most basic first-language coping skills to the second language” (Meyer, 1984), resulting in creating a sense of failure and fatigue. Vogely (1998) actively discussed potential sources of listening comprehension anxiety on the basis of students’ verbal reports. More than fifty percent of the students regarded characteristics of input as the main sources of listening anxiety. For example, if the input is not clear or too fast, students feel anxious and frustrated. The second reason concerns process-related aspects of foreign language learning, such as inappropriate strategies and lack of processing time. For example, anxiety becomes a regular part of the listening comprehension process when listeners think that they must understand and define every word they hear and apply to every grammar rule (Oxford, 1993). Highly anxious people seem easily distracted from the task because time is divided between the emotion-related processing and task-related cognition (Tobias, 1986). Their working memory capacities are easily overloaded with a task which is relevant to worry cognitions. Finally, instructional factors and personal factors surface as the least-reported source of listening anxiety. Among the personal factors, fear of failure seems to be related to students’ erroneous beliefs about language learning or negative experience.

2.3.3 The Embodiment of Language Anxiety in Learning English
In the process of learning English, many students may suffer from language anxiety in different degree. First, students lack listening and speaking and are weak in them both. Second, students may be unfamiliar with the content, or the speed of the speaker and the vocabulary may be too difficult, all of which, absolutely, influence the listening comprehension. According to the intonation, the change of tone and logic, one can analyze, conclude, deduce and judge from the listening material, so one can understand it well. Doing this needs thinking and writing to pay more attention to the information, which enables the student’s brain to be in a state of excitement with swift reaction to the questions. Third, high anxiety always presents in these following ways: nervous, sweat in palm, quickened pulse and heartbeat, blunt reaction, catching the former sentence and missing the latter one, complaining that the speed of the material is too fast and the speech is very ambiguous. The student who has high anxiety shows low consciousness in the classroom and in the progress of listening comprehension training. And they are so nervous that they can hardly say anything when answering questions. For students with less anxiety, they can have a good interaction with the teacher. The psychology of high anxiety seriously influences students’ listening comprehension. If teachers do not take measures to deal with such problems, the student will lose faith in learning English and the goal of English teaching will never be reached. So finding the cause of high anxiety and measures to conquer it is worth taking into account for both teachers and students.

2.3.4 Effects of Anxiety on Foreign Language Learning
In terms of direction of effects, some research has differentiated facilitating anxiety from debilitating anxiety (Kleinmann, 1977; Scovel 1978). While facilitating anxiety is associated with anxiety that improves performance, debilitating anxiety is associated with poor performance. For the most part, studies on language anxiety have focused on its debilitating effects (Aida, 1994; Phillips, 1992; Young, 1986).
The field of psychology has considered the effects of anxiety on performance as an inverted U-curve model. According to the model, the best performance is produced around the peak of the curve, when a given task is relatively simple and a moderate level of anxiety (or arousal) is felt. On the other hand, the quality of performance is lowered when there is too much, too little, or no anxiety. In particular, as the demands on the system further exceed the ability of the person, anxiety will begin to have a negative effect (MacIntyre, 1995). Eysenck (1979) explained this phenomenon, suggesting that anxiety impairs performance by causing task-irrelevant cognitive activities and the students tend to compensate for the increased cognitive demands by increased efforts.
Some researchers acclaim that language anxiety is actually “helpful” or “facilitating” to a certain extent, such as