Abstract:Researches on foreign language anxiety began in 1940s, but most of them were conducted after 1980s. In 1986, Horwitz and others designed a tool to measure anxiety in foreign language classroom. It is known as the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and used to distinguish foreign language anxiety from general anxiety. Since then, many researchers have used it directly or designed their own ones on the basis of its design model. Various studies have proved that as a distinct phenomenon, foreign language anxiety indeed exists among language learners. Chinese scholars also conducted similar researches and have drawn some conclusions. However, most of them used college students, rather than middle school students, as their subjects. In view of this, more researches should be conducted in middle schools because for senior high school students, the situation is believed to be more serious since they are younger and are under great pressure of College Entrance Exam. The present research was conducted for this purpose. This study, firstly, lists out the related researches and important theories on such a subject. Then, it describes the identification and classification of foreign language anxiety. Lastly, it analyses the causes and effects of the senior high school students’ foreign language anxiety and puts forward relevant strategies and suggestions to reduce the foreign language anxiety.

Keywords: foreign language anxiety; senior high school students; classification; causes of anxiety ; effects; strategies

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 Literature Review-3

2.1 Previous research on foreign language anxiety-3

2.2 Relevant theories on foreign language anxiety-4

Chapter 3 Anxiety-7

3.1 Basic concepts-7

3.2 Classifications of anxiety-8

Chapter 4 Analysis-11

4.1 The causes of senior high school students’ English classroom anxiety-11

4.2 The effect of foreign language anxiety on English learning-12

4.3 Strategies on reducing foreign language anxiety-13

Chapter 5 Conclusion-15

References-17

Acknowledgements-19