On the Influence of Anxiety on English Learning 英语专业毕业论文.docVIP

PAGE  PAGE  PAGE 14 On the Influence of Anxiety on English Learning Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Thesis topic Language learning strategies and foreign language anxiety have long been two hot topics that have received considerable attention from a great number of researchers. The research on language learning strategies started in 1970s, and it has a history of more than 30 years until now. There are mainly five subjects: 1) the strategies used by successful language learners 2) the differences in language learning strategies use between successful learners and unsuccessful learners 3) the relationship between language learning strategies and language learning achievement 4) the factors which influence language learning strategies use 5) language learning strategy training and its effects on language learning. Language experts and researchers used to pay much of their attentions to foreign language learning from the teachers’ perspective. But when they find that not all of the problems or difficulties derive from teachers, they begin to shift their attention to learners. Foreign language anxiety is a very important affective factor of influencing language learning performance. The paper aims to present what foreign language anxiety is and what measures can be taken to deal with the problem. Based on the study and investigation into western theories on language learning anxiety, the present article discusses the effects of language anxiety on language learning. Anxiety is one of learners’ affective attitudes besides motivation, empathy, self –esteem, self-image, etc. Most research on anxiety has shown that anxiety plays an important role in second language acquisition either directly or indirectly. There seems to be a bi-directional negative correlation between high degree of anxiety and language learning achievement. In other words, high degree of anxiety may lead to poor linguistic performance while the learners’ awareness of their poor language compete