A Study on the English Learning Anxiety of College Students in Webcast Teaching Environment

Abstract

English learning anxiety is a complicated psychological emotion. Based on a systematic review of existing research findings, this paper, employing the Affective Filter Hypothesis as the theoretical basis and 177 random undergraduates from a Minzu University as the research subjects, aims to understand the general situation and specific performances of students’ English learning anxiety in online classes through a questionnaire and a structured interview and identify the causes of English learning anxiety so as to propose corresponding strategies. With the assistance of Excel, the investigation based on the questionnaire uncovers the fact that under webcast teaching environment, university students generally suffer from English learning anxiety, which maintains at the middle to the upper level and manifests itself primarily as negative evaluation anxiety and communicative anxiety, accompanied by a degree of interaction anxiety and general anxiety. Thus this paper recommends the following countermeasures. English teachers need to adjust their teaching content and structure, provide positive feedback and assessment to students, and organize learning groups, whereas students should build self-efficacy, increase enthusiasm to English learning, improve ambiguity tolerance, and strengthen self-control to ease their English learning anxiety in online classes.