A study on current situations of college students’ foreign language anxiety

【Abstract】An empirical study on current situations of college students’ foreign language anxiety is concerned with in this paper. The author adopted Horwitz’s Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale （FLCAS） to measure the level of foreign language anxiety of 325 participants and then the conclusions are drawn.

【Key words】Study； current situations； college students’ FLA

1. Significance of the research

FLA （Foreign language anxiety） includes 3 major components： communication apprehension， test anxiety， and fear of negative evaluation. FLA is the main factor influencing foreign language learning. Therefore， it is important to have an overall picture of language anxiety in foreign language learning and teaching. Focusing on affective factors especially anxiety is also a way to educate all-round development students in learners' emotional education.

2. Methodology

325 college students are randomly chosen in Liaoning University of Technology as the research subjects. Interviews and Horwitz’s foreign language classroom anxiety scale （FLCAS） are adopted as the main instruments. The author Preliminary inquiry the following questions： What are current situations of subjects’ FLA and what implications can be drawn？

3. Data analysis and discussions

Data analysis

According to the result ， the items lead to high anxiety in foreign language class mainly cover item4 ， item23 and item6 .item4 and item6 belong to communication apprehension and item4 is test anxiety. The reason would be analyzed in detail.

In foreign Language class， authentic communication becomes problematic especially speaking in class without preparation which can attribute to collge students’ poor academic foundation， lacking confidence and lacking speaking practice in English class. CET tests anxiety primarily because that the subjects in the study are confronting severe hunting job environment， which requires them to pass CET4， although they are non-English majors. It seems that today the certificate of CET4 is the prerequisite for one to find a good job， so the practical goal --considering prospect or hope of a future is main reason of CET anxiety， because getting no CET certificate can leave many students unemployed.

In summary， Anxiety of speaking with native speakers was due mainly to the immature command of the target language. Students are performing in an unfamiliar medium， the target language， rather than in their native language， where they may have difficulties at both ends of the communicative process， one is that they may not understand what is being asked ，the other is they may fail in their own attempts to communicate， which may cause them great anxiety. Furthermore， Chinese students， learning English as a foreign language， have few opportunities to speak English， although they have some access to English from the media （such as TV， radio， movies， etc.）， or from textbooks or perhaps from person-to-person interactions with native speakers of English.