Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Since 1960s, the research of second language acquisition has achieved muchprogress. Language learning process, as a complex mental process, is a commoncognitive activity for human beings. Therefore, the whole process of language learningis inevitably affected by the mental and affective factors. From 1970s, foreign languageinstructional researchers started working on the students’ mental factors. Both of theresearches abroad and at home indicate that the affective factors have much influenceon students’ foreign language learning. Just as Jakobofits (1976) proposed, the affectivefactors take up 33 percent of all the factors which affect the language learningachievements. It can be seen that the students’ mental factors have much to do with thelearning results.As an important factor among all of the affective factors, anxiety is considered tobe one of the most critical mental variables. In the whole process of foreign languagelearning, foreign language anxiety has much influence on the learning results. Foreignlanguage anxiety is an psychological term put forward by the American psychologistHorwitz in 1986. According to Horwitz, foreign language anxiety has something to dowith the foreign language learning. Foreign language anxiety exists in the wholeprocess of the students’ foreign language learning, ranging from acquiring knowledge toapplying knowledge.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Present Research
As mentioned above, the anxiety level plays an important role in one’s foreignlanguage learning process. Compared with the commonly-used traditional teachingmethod, more effective instructional ways to alleviate the students’ foreign languageanxiety is worth exploring. Through this study, the author aims to find a better way toalleviate vocational college students’ foreign language anxiety level, and then promotetheir English achievements. First, through this study, the vocational college students’foreign language anxiety level will be examined. Then, the anchored instruction in theEnglish classroom will be applied, and the relationship among anchored instruction,the students’ foreign language anxiety and their English proficiency will be applied. Ifthe students’ foreign language anxiety does affect their English proficiency, then wewill try to find some strategies to alleviate the students’ anxiety level in Englishclassroom. What’s more, if the anchored instruction proves to be an effective way todecrease the students’ anxiety level, then we will encourage the employment ofanchored instruction in vocational colleges.The author will apply the anchored instruction in the college English classroom,extending this teaching model from the theoretical field to the practical field. Throughthe discussion about the relationship among anchored instruction, the students’foreign language anxiety and their English proficiency, the author hopes to give somesuggestions for further researches. In practice, it is also meaningful to college Englishteaching, helping to improve the instructional strategies in vocational colleges.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Anchored Instruction
Anchored instruction was developed by the Cognition and Technology Group atVanderbilt (CTGV) under the leadership of John Bransford. As an importantinstructional strategy, anchored，英语论文，英语论文范文
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