Language anxiety of the students in rural junior high school and the study of its solving strategies

【Abstract】：English learning is a complex systematic process， it is not only affected by the language itself， but also other factors， including objective and subjective factors. The rural junior high school students due to lacking of relevant basics， they gradually lost interests in English and then their English learning anxiety arises increasingly. This thesis did a research on the junior high middle school students’ anxiety situation and its causes， to promote the cultivation of the learners’ positive emotional factors in English learning and explore new thoughts to optimize English teaching proficiency in rural areas and facilitate the comprehensive development of the students.

【Key words】： anxiety " "causes " strategies

I Introduction

Scovel defined anxiety as a state of apprehension， a vague fear.According to Gardner and MacIntyre ， language anxiety is a fear or apprehension happening when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language. This anxiety is linked to performing in the target language in direct ways. Foreign Language Anxiety is the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts. Recent researches in language learning anxiety have often concentrated on naturalistic inquiry and on the interrelation between language learning anxiety and classroom activity， test type， learning strategies， competitiveness， risk taking， beliefs about language learning， and attitudes. Many Chinese linguists and foreign teachers have done relevant research on language learning anxiety based on the western linguists’ theories and study achievements.However， the research on rural areas English teaching is quite rare and it is of great meaning to do research on rural students’ English learning anxiety. The aims of this research are to investigate what causes the rural students’ English learning anxiety and what should be done to ease language learning anxiety to facilitate the comprehensive development of the rural students.

III. The causes of anxiety in English class

3.1 Timid character， lack of self-confidence

The students who has a timid character and lack of self-confidence and risk-taking spirit often present out strait anxiety， which is stable and harmful .In rural junior high middle school， the students did not form their own mature characters and some give others the impressions that they are shy and timid due to their growing up environment， fragile basics and family education. In class， those students always shadow their heads and avoid eye-contact between the teachers. And some of them once answer the questions wrong， they are less likely to answer the questions again for their self-protection and confidence by avoiding committing any risks.

3.2 Mental shadow

Most students said that they had the relevant failing experiences of being excused or laughed at by their classmates and teachers when they committed mistakes in English classes and such kind of experiences， after keeping in their minds for a long period even a life time ，may still exist in their intuition. The students’ inner-minds are fragile and sensitive .To make few mistakes， the best way is to keep silent. Such kind of mental shadow may lead to self-doubtless and even self-denial and the students’ anxious emotion will fuel.

3.3 Test Pressure

Test anxiety， is considered as a type of performance anxiety originating from a fear of failure. It is anticipated that deficits in students’ language skills may lead to test anxiety. Some students experience test anxiety because they do not know how to review what they previously learned during or before a test situation. Test-anxious students often put unrealistic demands on themselves and can not allow anything less than a perfect test performance. However， students can not free themselves from the feeling of nervousness because daily evaluations of language skills are common and making mistakes in a foreign language class is quite frequent. Fear of failure and taking part in the exams and tasks， such as unit test， level test， oral presentation and written tasks， some students may find all kinds of excuses to escape from the test and tasks. When facing tests ，they fall into anxiety.

IV Strategies to solve anxiety in English learning

4.1 Adopt group cooperation learning method

Group cooperation learning method， as an effective way of learning has been adopted by a lot of English teachers in practice. In the group， the teacher will be relatively easy to find out different students’ anxiety causes. It is perhaps the students’ personal basics or the teacher-students relationship that lead to the anxiety in class. Different student has different kinds of anxiety and his or her causes of anxiety are different too. Therefore， in group， by means of the teacher’s observation and the communication between the students themselves， it is possible that the teacher can have a better understanding of his or her students’ opinions and find out the direct causes to the language anxiety in class. The teacher could take effective measures to deal with the students’ anxiety respectively and solve the students’ psychological problem.

4.2 Create relaxing learning atmosphere

To implement this method， firstly， the teacher should master effective and advanced educational and teaching methodology， think in the students’ shoes， respect the students’ interests， hobbies and personalities， and regard them as an equal individual. Thus the students will not have the psychology of being fear of the teacher and the distance between the teacher and the students can be shortened and in a large sense the unnecessary

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anxiety could also be avoided .The teacher should connect the teaching point with practice in reality ，namely the teacher should teach the students how to use what they have learned and mastered to express their own thoughts ，ideas ，experiences and life ，which will not only review the knowledge timely ， apply the learning point effectively and deepen the understanding between the teacher and the students undoubtedly ，but also make the students experience the happiness of success and activate the learning atmosphere .

4.3 Arrange the teaching content properly

According to Krashen’s input hypothesis， language learning will be effective when the language input level is i +one. Thus arranging understandable and acceptable teaching points step by step and taking most students’ existed basics into account are of great meaning and importance when the teacher prepare the teaching content . And in class， the teaching order should be from the appearance to the essence， the easy to the difficult， to make most students be interested in what they are learning， and then understand and master the newly -learned points gradually so that the classroom proficiency will be maximized .

4.4 Tolerate the students’ mistakes and shortcomings

Since the students’ basics are not so solid that as an English teacher ，he or she had better not laugh at the students’ committing mistakes or shortcomings and underestimate the students’ abilities when they cannot answer the questions or did something wrong in case of hurting the relevant student’s self-esteem or leading to other students’ laughing at the relevant student ，but adopt tolerant attitude and proper ways to rectify the student’s mistakes and give them more encouragement rather than blames. As for some inconspicuous and unavoidable mistakes， such as grammatical mistakes， phonetic mistakes and pronunciation mistakes in oral English expression ，the teacher even can neglect the mistakes firstly and temporarily and then give the student some reminding and direction after class .The teacher should set up the concept “Man to err， to err is human” among the students and encourage the students to speak English more even if tremendous mistakes may be made ，the effect of which is still much better than dumb English .

V Conclusion

As for English teaching in the rural areas， anxiety is an factor that the teacher should not neglect and in contrast the teacher should pay enough attention to it .The teacher should spare no efforts to wipe out the students’ language anxiety， try to praise more and criticize less， and encourage more while strike less so that the students will realize their own advantages and improvement .And the teacher’s goal of enhancing the whole teaching quality and the students’ aim of upgrading English level will come true some day .

References：

[1] Aida Y.Examination of Horwitz， Horwitz， and Cope’s Construct of Foreign Language Anxiety： the Case of Students of Japanese. The Modern Language Journal . 1994

[2] MacIntyre PD，Gardner RC.The subtle effects of language anxiety on cognitive processing in the second language. Language Learning Journal . 1994

[3] Saito Y，Horwitz EK，Garza TJ.Foreign language reading anxiety. Modern Language Journal， The . 1999