Insights into Second-grade Students’ English Vocabulary Learning Anxiety Differences

Abstract

With the development of humanistic psychology as well as modern English education, the emotional factors in the fundamental stage of English learning have been emphasized by scholars at home and abroad Since the early 20th century, which contributes a large number of exceptional research about the correlation between strategies of male and female English learning and academic performance. What stand out is English words that exert an essential impact on English study process and strongly associated with the comprehensive outcomes. However, studies focus on two sexes’ English learning anxiety differences and senior high school English vocabulary learning are still relatively rare, especially for the combination of which two aspects. Thus, this work is devoted to make further understanding of the English vocabulary learning anxiety differences between two genders and possible factors involved. 64 second-grade students were selected and surveyed through a questionnaire adapted from Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale by Horwitz and Likert to analyze relative anxiety feelings and attitudes towards domestic senior high school English vocabulary learning courses. The experimental results showed that: The English vocabulary learning anxiety of both male and female belongs to upper middle state while that of female students is slightly higher than the rest. External forces, students’ self-recognition and consciousness towards English learning are the main resources of anxiety.