Effects of anxiety on foreign language teaching and learning

Abstract：It is no easy job to define anxiety. Anxiety is often linked to fear that one will fail in some way：on an assignment，speaking in class，on a test，in the final grade，in competition，maintaining one's position in a community，in interactions with native speakers or on the job.

Key words：anxiety；foreign language teaching

Anxiety plays an important affective role in SLA. Language anxiety can be defined as the “feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts，including speaking，listening and learning”. Krashen（1981）posits that there appears to be a consistent relationship between various forms of anxiety and language proficiency in all situations，formal and informal. Phillips（1992）argues that although many variables may interact to affect language learning，foreign language anxiety should be of considerable concern to language educators and students because of its potential impact，not only on performance on tests，but also on students' affective reactions，hence their attitudes toward language learning in general.

Students anxiety may first come from their competitive natures. Students tend to become anxious when they compare themselves with other learners in the class and find themselves less proficient. As they perceive themselves becoming more proficient and therefore better able to complete，their anxiety decrease. Some students feel teachers questions threatening and turn to feel very anxious. They feel they themselves do not know why their minds are blocked when they are asked questions. They fear at least that they would give the wrong answer and will discourage the teacher as well as be the laughing stock of the class. Some other students fear that their answer to the question or their performances in learning process will be negatively evaluated or to be more explicit，they are afraid that teachers would criticize them. Besides，there are also some other sources of anxiety，including tests，unsuccessful self-image.

Too much anxiety（debilitation anxiety）has a negative effect either indirectly through worry and self-doubt or directly through reduced participation or avoidance of the target language. Debilitating anxiety causes the learner to “flee” the learning task in order to avoid the source of anxiety. On other hand，some concern，some apprehension，over a task to be accomplished is a positive factor. Facilitating anxiety，i.e. low anxiety can motivate learners to “fight” the new learning task，prompting them to make extra efforts to overcome their feeling of anxiety. Take examination as an example. Students with no anxiety during the course of examination are not likely to have good scores，esp. when with short examination duration but a large quantity of examination questions. In this case，low-anxiety state，i.e. facilitating anxiety can urge the examinee to work more efficiently on examination questions. The feeling of nervousness in the examination is often a sign of facilitative anxiety，a symptom of just enough tension to get the job done. The distinction between the two types of anxiety corresponds to the intensity of anxiety，with a low-anxiety state having a facilitating and a high-anxiety state a debilitating effect.

參考文献

[1]Bilaystflk，Ellen. 1978. A theoretical model of second language learning. Vol 28，Nol，69-83

[2]Brown，H. 1994. Principles of Language Learning Teaching.（3rd ed）. Englewood Cliffs，NJ：Prentice-Hall Regents

作者简介：

李冰（1981—），女，山东人，现任东北大学秦皇岛分校语言学院讲师，硕士研究生，研究方向为英语语言学及应用语言学。