The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the speak-in-class anxiety exist, analyze the major cause of the anxiety, and try to provide some strategies for foreign language teaching。 The research is to be conducted in a Junior Middle School, and data is to be gathered through class observation, questionnaire and face-to-face interview。 I hope this study can make sense in some aspects。 Firstly, to some extent, the problem of speak-in-class anxiety will be clarified。 The investigation and research will figure out the cause of this problem。 Secondly, the awareness of English teachers about the speak-in-class anxiety will be improved, thinking high of the importance of communication in class, adopting suitable way to teach。 The speaking skill or the oral competence will be enhanced。 Thirdly, this study helps decrease students’ speak-in-class anxiety。 Lastly, hopefully, the study is helpful to other people to further research in this filed。
1。3 Research questions
The research, mainly based on one designated lesson, pays attention to the students’ speak-in-class anxiety, and seeks answers to the following questions:
Is there speak-in-class anxiety in students from Class 8?
What are the causes of speak-in-class anxiety?
What effective strategies for teachers can relieve the speak-in-class anxiety?
2 Literature review
2。1 Definition of anxiety and foreign language anxiety
Anxiety is defined as distress or uneasiness of the mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune。 General anxiety is the excessive and exaggerated worry about everyday things。 It is an unrealistic, or out of proportion constant worry that dominates and interferes with daily functions like work, school, relationships, and social activities。 Freud(1926),a famous psychologist, stated that anxiety is self-awareness, reaction to dealing with crisis, an unpleasant physical phenomenon, which is caused by conscious experience。 文献综述
Anxiety in second language learning is similar as the general anxiety。 When foreign language learner continually experience language learning anxiety, they also react physically and psychologically。 Physically, they may experience the heart palpitation, sweating and trembling。 Psychologically, they may react with negative thoughts, worrying about language learning and speaking, or having low level of self-confidence in class by not looking at the eyes of the teacher。 In 1978, Scovel defines anxiety as ‘a state of apprehension, a vague fear’。 Spieberger (1983) hold the language anxiety is the subjective feeling of tension apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system in the process of learning language。 The concept of foreign language anxiety was not separated from general anxiety until 1986。 Horwitz was the first one who puts forward the concept of foreign language anxiety, which is of great importance in the research history of foreign language anxiety。 He thinks foreign language anxiety is not simply a combination of these fears transferred to a foreign language context, but a distinct complex set of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors。 The foreign language anxiety includes fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and so on。 Some professionals at home also define the foreign language anxiety。 In 1991, Shen Zhuyue and Zhu Jufang believe that anxiety is a kind of worry or action of potential threat to ones’ self-esteem。 In this research, I hold the view that foreign language anxiety means anxiety of learning English, particularly the anxiety of speaking English in the English classroom when students do the oral activities, such as speech and group discussion。 To be specific, the feeling of fear, tension is more likely to lead to both mental and physical abnormal reaction。