Abstract
Using the scale of communication apprehension developed by McCroskey, a comparative study has been conducted between English majors and non-majors of different English learning experiences in a Chinese university. Whereas all the subjects remain at the medium level of communication apprehension, no significant difference was found across different communication scenarios among students of different majors as well as different grades. The results imply that the cause of communication apprehension might not be necessarily associated with differences in learning experience, syllabi or even teaching approaches. The characteristics of the high-contextual Chinese culture may be interpretable to this non-difference result. Thus, we may hypothesize with confidence that psychological approaches may be more effective to reduce the phenomenon of mute English of Chinese learners and their reticence in English class.
Highlights
1.1 Mute English in ChinaOne of the perplexing inhibiting problems for Chinese English learners is the “Mute English” characterized by their inability or reluctance to speak English for basic communication proposes or to understand spoken English
Scholars in China (e.g. Yuan, 2007) believed that the mute English is a direct consequence of examination-bound education system that has been prevailing in China, where “Chinese students and teachers are deeply influenced by the tradition of examinationoriented education in China
The overall results of this study clearly indicate that most probably it is the cultural factors that caused the communication apprehension of Chinese students while they communicate in English
Summary
One of the perplexing inhibiting problems for Chinese English learners is the “Mute English” characterized by their inability or reluctance to speak English for basic communication proposes or to understand spoken English. Yuan, 2007) believed that the mute English is a direct consequence of examination-bound education system that has been prevailing in China, where “Chinese students and teachers are deeply influenced by the tradition of examinationoriented education in China They care most for the examinations, and the scores of examinations are the main KPI’s for teaching and learning” (Zhou, Wang, & Wang, 2004, p.79). Scholars in China agree that mute English is a hard-to-treat diseases in English education in China (Cen,1999; Dai & Wu, 2010) It is definitely a failure of English education and huge waste of education resources that Chinese students end up in mute English after so many years of learning. This study attempts to investigate the influence of communication apprehension of Chinese English learners on their willingness to communicate in English and to find out if relationship exists between communication apprehension and different English-learning experiences so that we may be able to come up with clues that may lead to any functional measures to reduce or eliminate mute English effectively
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