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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background
With the constant deepening of foreign language acquisition research, theeffects of learners’ psychological factor on foreign language learning have beenpaid more and more attention, such as anxiety, motivation, inhibition andself-esteem. Among them, anxiety is one of the most critical psychological factorsin language learning and its effect on language learning is particularly exploring.According to Arnold “…attention to affective aspects can lead to more effectivelanguage learning. When dealing with the affective side of language learners,attention needs to be given both to how we can overcome problems created bynegative emotions and to how we can create and use more positive, facilitativeemotions” (Arnold, 1999). He also emphasized, among so many affectivevariables, “Anxiety is quite possibly the affective factor that most pervasivelyobstructs the learning process” (Arnold, 1999). Spielberger divided anxiety intotrait anxiety and state anxiety. The distinction between trait anxiety and stateanxiety makes anxiety an empirical research, which gives rise to a new stage of empirical study of language anxiety (Spielberger, 1972). Horwitz designed aForeign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale to seek more specific effects ofanxiety on language and divided foreign language anxiety into communicationapprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation (Horwitz, 1986：127).These studies have made SLA researchers come to a conclusion that how foreignlanguage learners feel about language learning may have a significant influenceon their success. Since the 1980s, research on foreign language anxiety has beenshifted to the specific language skills such as listening, reading, speaking andwriting, for example the studies on speaking anxiety (Philips,1992, Kitano,2001)，reading anxiety (Vande Berg,1993, Garza,1999), writing anxiety (Horwitzand Schallert, 1999), and listening comprehension anxiety (Horwitz and J.Cope1986, Zhou Dandan, 2003).
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1.2 Significance of the study
In general, students as well as teachers working on related studies couldbenefit a lot from the research. As for students, the study, once completed, aims toraise their awareness of present situation of English listening proficiency. Oncethey are aware of their anxiety level as well as different kinds of factors whichbring about language anxiety, they will develop their language competence andlistening skills and strategies in order to make anxiety less debilitating. Eventuallythey can find reasonable and effective ways to alleviate their anxiety level. As forthe teachers, the study provides them with several pedagogical implications basedon the results of the research. Therefore, teachers have to adjust their teachingmethodology so as to help their students reduce the negative impact of anxiety,facilitate their learning comprehension process, and improve students’performance in listening class.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Definition of anxiety
When learning a foreign language, we could meet a lot of situations  whereanxiety appears. For example, some students are anxious of speaking in front ofthe platform. Some people are afraid of talking with native speakers because theyare anxious of making mistakes and being本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。