Abstract
English serves as a bridge of communication for the people from all over the world as it plays an increasingly crucial role in the process of globalization. In accordance with English curriculum standards issued by the Ministry of Education in 2011, the ultimate goal of English language discipline is to communicate. But over these years, China’s English education has been difficult to get out of the dilemma of “Dumb English”. When facing the real oral communication situations, students are still too nervous to speak with a great deal of fluency and accuracy. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the relationship between English language anxiety, gender, years of English learning and final oral English achievement by inviting 41 English major freshmen of foreign language departments of Nanchang Business College. For this purpose, this study adopts a reliable Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Horwitz and Cope (1986) to measure students’ anxiety. The results reveal that anxiety levels between males and females are similar; there is also no significant difference among years of learning English; however, a significantly negative correlation between college students’ foreign language anxiety and their oral English learning achievement was found.
Highlights
Emotional variables are regarded as one of the important indexes in the new English curriculum standard in China
The results reveal that anxiety levels between males and females are similar; there is no significant difference among years of learning English; a significantly negative correlation between college students’ foreign language anxiety and their oral English learning achievement was found
The mean score among males (n = 22) is 91.68 (s.d. = 17.69), while females (n = 19) is 100.58 (s.d. = 15.03). It confirmed that the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCAS) is a reliable tool to measure foreign language anxiety
Summary
Emotional variables are regarded as one of the important indexes in the new English curriculum standard in China. Anxiety which provides a new direction for oral English teaching in English teaching is the most important emotional factor in English learning and teaching. Due to the individual differences of participants and environmental factors on foreign language anxiety and learning achievement, gender and other factors, there is no consensual view regarding the relationship between foreign language anxiety and learning achievement, gender and other potential factors (Chastain, 1975; Yashima, 2002; Suleimenova, 2013). The current study aims to figure out the relationship between foreign language anxiety, gender, years of learning English and learners’ learning achievement
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