摘 要
自20 世纪70 年代开始，国外许多心理学家和语言学家便着手研究焦虑对外语学习的影响。虽然部分语言学家认为某些焦虑会促进外语学习，但大部分调查都表明焦虑对外语学习具有负作用。此外，调查还发现最大的焦虑往往与口语活动中的不愉快经历有关，这主要是源于口语交际直接、及时、不可预测等特点。国内从上世纪80 年代开始便不断有外语界人士对焦虑进行实证研究，结果同样证实焦虑对于外语学习的成绩有很大的负面影响。对口语学习和交际过程中出现的焦虑所进行的调查，更进一步证实了焦虑对口语学习具有巨大的阻碍作用。
本文主要以情感焦虑与大学英语口语教学为中心展开研究。大学英语口语教学历经多年的改革，如今亦存在很多问题，如学生不积极参与口语练习、教师不合理安排课堂活动等，一直阻碍着口语教学效率的提高，这也引起了相关人士的重视。本文拟分析口语课堂中焦虑产生的原因并尝试从学生方面、教师方面和课堂组织形式方面探讨如何降低焦虑的程度，从而实现教学相长。
关键词：英语口语教学；焦虑；课堂教学
ABSTRACT
Since 1970s, many psychologists and linguists abroad have done researches about the influence of anxiety on foreign language study. Although few of these linguists consider that some kinds of anxiety can facilitate foreign language study, most of studies indicate that anxiety have negative influence on foreign language learning [7]10. Besides, the studies point out that the biggest anxiety usually relates to the unpleasant experience during the oral activities [5]12. It’s mainly caused by the characteristics of oral communication which is direct、timely and unexpected[16]215. At home, since 1980s, some foreign language learners have started to do experiments and studies continually, the results also confirmed that anxiety would hinder the achievement of language learners. What’s more, the investigations on the anxiety happened during oral learning and communication further proved that anxiety greatly hindered oral study.
The research this thesis mainly focuses on the affective anxiety and college oral English teaching. Although college oral English teaching has experienced years’ of revolution, there are still many problems. For example, students take part in oral practice inactively, teachers organize classroom activities inappropriately, etc., and these have always hindered the upgrading of teaching rate of oral English, which have arouse people’s concerns. This thesis intends to reason out the causes of anxiety, and discuss about the ways to reduce the degree of student’s anxiety from student’s aspect、teacher’s aspect and forms of classroom organization in order to improve both the teaching and learning of oral English.
Keywords：oral English teaching; anxiety; classroom teaching
Contents
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………….1
2. Anxiety—Review of the Relevant Literature………………………………………2
2.1 The Definition of Anxiety and Language Anxiety…………………………………2
2.2 Three Perspectives of Anxiety Study………………………………………………3
2.2.1 Trait Anxiety………………………………………………………………………3
2.2.2 State Anxiety………………………………………………………………………4
2.2.3 Situation Specific Anxiety……………………………………………………….4
3. Sources of Language Anxiety……………………………………………………….5
3.1 Self-esteem……………………………………………….5
3.2 Tolerance of ambiguity…………………………………………………………….6
3.3 Risk-taking……………………………………………….6
3.4 Competitiveness …………………………………………6
3.5 Social anxiety…………………………………………….7
3.6 Test anxiety………………………………………………………………………7
3.7 Identity and culture shock………………………………8
3.8 Beliefs……………………………………………………………………………8
3.9 Classroom activities and methods……………………………………………….9
3.10 Instructor-Learner Interactions………………………9
4. The impact of anxiety……………………………………………………………9
4.1 Facilitating aspect…………………………………………………………………9
4.2 Debilitating aspect ……………………………………………………………….10
4.3 Two interviews…………………………………………………………………10
5. The stratagies to conquer the anxiety………………………………………….12
5.1 From the student's aspect………………………………………………………….12
5.2 From the teacher's aspect………………………………………………………….13
5.3 From the classroom teaching techniques………………………………………….13
5.3.1 Offering Supportive Talk…………………………………………………13
5.3.2 Treating oral errors in classroom appropriately…………………………….….14
5.3.3 Assigning Proper Tasks for Students and Adopting
Proper Teaching Ways to Complete the Tasks……………………………………….15
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….16
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….…17
References…………………………………………………………………………….18
