英语写作焦虑

红河学院本科毕业论文（设计）
附件1
2014年度本科生毕业论文（设计）
英语写作焦虑在英语专业学生的
调查
院－系：外国语学院
专业：英语
年级：2010级
学生姓名：殷茂玉(组长)
学号：201006050138
导师及职称：钟宝霞（讲师）
2014年5月
2014Annual Graduation Thesis (Project) of the College Undergraduate
An Investigation of English Writing
Anxiety Among English Majors
Department:College of Foreign Languages
Major:English
Grade:2010
Student Name:Yin mao yu
Student No.:201006050138
Tutor:Lecturer Zhong Bao Xia
Finished by May, 2014
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ABSTRACT
With Daly, Horwitz and Y-S-Cheng’s theoretical model of second language writing anxiety as research framework, this thesis surveyed English majors’English writing anxiety. Findings of the present study show that all of the English major students experience English writing anxiety. There is no significant difference in English anxiety among students from three different grades. There is significant difference in English writing anxiety between the students who hold positive attitudes towards English writing and those who hold negative attitudes towards English writing and there is significant difference in English writing anxiety among students who rated their English writing good, average and bad. Results from the qualitative study show the reasons why there is little difference in English writing anxiety among students from three different grades. What’s more, it is shown that the poor writing skills, cognitive anxiety, test anxiety and erroneous beliefs toward English writing are the main sources of English writing anxiety.
Key words:English writing anxiety; English major students; grade
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRUDUCTION
1.1 The Background Information of This Study
1.2 The Purpose and Significance of This Study
2. LITERITURE REVIEW
2.1 Definition of Writing Anxiety
2.2 Empirical Studies of Writing Anxiety Home and Abroad
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
3.1 Research Questions
3.2 Subjects
3.3 Research Instruments
3.3.1 The background information
3.3.2 Questionnaire (SLWAI)
3.3.3 Interview
3.4 Data Collection and Analysis
3.4.1 Questionnaire
3.4.2 Interview
4. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results from The SLWAI
4.2 Results from The Interview
4.3 Discussion
4.3.1 English writing anxiety experienced by English majors
4.3.2 Difference in English writing anxiety among different grades
4.4 Sources of English Writing Anxiety Among Different Grades
4.4.1 Test anxiety
4.4.2 Poor writing skill
4.4.3 Being afraid of negative evaluation (Cognitive Anxiety)
5. CONCLUIONS
1.INTRUDUCTION
Many studies have shown that affect-related factors, including anxiety, attitude and motivations have great impact on foreign language learning. Among these factors, anxiety, which can also be called apprehension or fear, has drawn great attention of researchers since the 1970s. Second language researchers and theorists have been aware that anxiety often appears during the process of language learning, especially foreign language learning, and consequently affects the learning achievements. According to Horwitz and her colleagues (1986), foreign language anxiety is the threat to an individual’s self-concept caused by the inherent limitation of communicating in an imperfectly mastered second language. From their viewpoint, foreign language anxiety is clearly associated with listening and speaking. Many researchers have carried out studies both at home and abroad in this area.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Definition of Writing Anxiety
The term“writing apprehension”was first proposed by Daly & Miller in 1975. They defined writing apprehension as“a situation and subject-specific individual difference that is concerned with a person’s general tendency to approach or avoid writing accompanied by some amount of evaluation.”Writing anxiety involves“anxiety with writing situations, frustration, and low productivity while writing”(Scott&Rodwell,1997:47).
2.2 Empirical Studies of Writing Anxiety Home and Abroad
Daly & Miller(1975b)found that in educational settings writ⁃ing apprehension affects student satisfaction in courses requiring writing, expectations of success in writing classes, enrollment patterns in advanced composition courses, and enjoyment of out of class projects ostensibly demanding s ome writing. In Daly’s (1977) study, writers with low level of writing anxiety produced three times more words than those with high level of writing anxiety. Additionally, there were significantly more paragraphs, more sentences, more nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositional phrases in the articles written by writers with low level of writing anxiety, whereas writers with high level of writing anxiety made more spelling errors than low-anxiety ones. Lee&Krashen(1997) reported that native speakers of Chinese in Taiwan with higher writing apprehension tend to receive lower evaluations on the composition section of senior high school examination.In 2004, Cheng designed a measurement
tool named Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), which was e specially used to measure foreign/second language writing anxiety. What’s more, it was tested that there are high validity and reliability in SLWAI. With the help of SLWAI, Atay&Kurt(2006) made a study of English writing anxiety of Prospective teachers (PTs) in Turkey. Results of the SLWAI showed that more than half of the participating PTs had high or average writing anxiety. PTs responses to the open- ended questionnaire indicated that those with high and average anxiety had difficulties in organizing their thoughts and producing ideas while writing in L2. In addition, PTs considered universities instructors and their past L2 writing experiences as the major factor affecting their attitudes towards L2 writing, and discussed the psychological and physiological reactions that had during the writing process. Finally, the responses of the PTs revealed that their writing experiences may affect their future teaching practices.
In China, Zhou&Tang(2010) investigated the influence of foreign language writing anxiety on writing process. Data analysis showed that L2 writing anxiety was negatively correlated with the composition scores but positively correlated with L1 interference as coded in the thinking-aloud process. Guo&Qing (2010) reported an empirical study on foreign language writing anxiety of 453 Chinese non-English majors by means of SLWAI and interviews. The study reveals that (1) the non-English majors students experience moderate foreign language writing anxiety, and one anxiety factor, avoidance behavior, is of high frequency; (2) the students from high and low anxiety groups and each anxiety factor exhibit significant differences in
writing performance; (3) there are significantly negative correlations between writing performance and all four anxiety fact ors; (4) the students’self-perceptions of foreign language writing ability and overall foreign proficiency have significant effects on their writing anxiety.
3 RESEARCH DESIGN
3.1 Research Questions
We mainly explore the following two questions in the present study.
1) Do English major students experience writing anxiety in English? If they do, to what extent do they reach?
2) What is the difference in English writing anxiety level among students in different grades?
3.2 Subjects
The subjects in the present study come from a normal university in central China. The total amount of the subjects is 220 who major in the same major English. They are from six natural classes in different grades and 77 freshmen, 78 sophomores and 65 juniors are all chosen randomly. They have learned English for at least 6 years. Of them there are 44 male students and the rest are 176 female students. Their average age is 18.5 years old.
3.3 Research Instruments
The instruments are composed of three sections: background information, Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) and interview .
3.3.1 The background information
The background information is designed to collect information about various aspects of learner differences, including subjects’name, age, and grade.
3.3.2 Questionnaire (SLWAI)
The Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) designed by Cheng (2004) is an instrument that measures the degree to which a student feels anxious when writing in English. This SLWAI contains twenty-two items falling into three factors. To facilitate the subjects to understand and respond, the questionnaire is translated into Chinese without any amendment. It adopts a five-point Likert response format (1＝strongly degree; 2＝disagree; 3＝neither agree nor disagree; 4＝agree; 5＝strongly disagree). Seven of them (Items 1,4,7,17,18,21,22) are negatively worded and required reverse scoring before being summed up to the total scores.
In her study, Cheng(2004) demonstrated that the total scale and factors of the SLWAI had good internal consistency reliability (ɑ＝.91), respectable test-retest reliability (ｒ＝.85) and adequate convergent and discriminant validity, and satisfactory criterion-related validity.
3.3.3 Interview
There are two open-ended questions in this part. Q1: Is it difficult for you to finish an English composition? And why? Q2: Can you feel the tense when you are asked to write an English composition? And Why?
3.4 Data Collection and Analysis
3.4.1 Questionnaire
In the process of data collection, the total amount of the questionnaires handed out is 220, and all of them were collected. Because the students were very cooperative and carefully finished the questionnaire, all of the 220 copies were valid. Later, all the original data was typed into computer by the author and another postgraduate. Since then, after seven items of SLWAI requiring reverse scoring were dealt with appropriately, all the data were collected and edited by excel, and the results were analyzed by SPSS17.0 in terms of descriptive statistics，One-Way mean analysis, and correlation analysis.
By using a median split procedure, the subjects whose mean of English writing anxiety is lower than 2.5 are classified into low-anxiety group, and those whose mean of English writing anxiety is higher than 3.5 are classified into high-anxiety group. And those whose mean of English writing anxiety is between 2.5 and 3.5 fell into moderate –anxiety group.
3.4.2 Interview
In processing the data of interview, the students’ interviews were analyzed and discussed based on the questions in the interview. The author reviewed all the data and made a summary of all the subjects’ responses and then summarized them into several categories, which were followed by several examples taken by the students in the responses. After making sure all the data from the interview were analyzed, they were further translated into English for the interview was recorded in Chinese.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results from the SLWAI
In order to know the English writing anxiety of different grades, descriptive statistics of SLWAI among three grades are needed. In order to learn whether there is any difference on means of English writing anxiety among three grades, one-way ANOV A is also necessary. At last, comparisons of means of English writing anxiety between two grades can show whether there is any difference on English writing anxiety between different grades.
Table 1 Descriptive statistics of SLWAI
Table 2 One-way ANOV A of writing anxiety of the three different
grades of English major
From table 1 and table 2, the mean of all the participants’ writing anxiety level is 3.18, and those of freshmen, sophomores and juniors are 3.12, 3.25 and 3.17
respectively. Therefore it can be found that Chinese college students of different grades in English major students experience writing anxiety when writing compositions in English. One-way ANOV A indicates that there is no significant difference in writing anxiety level among different grades in English major.
4.2 Results from the Interview
Table 3 The percentage of the first open-ended question
In answering the first open-ended question, 61.36%of the students think that it is difficult to write compositions in English, but there are some differences among different grades. 55.84% of freshmen think it is not difficult to write compositions in English, while more than 70%of sophomores and juniors believe it difficult to write compositions in English.
The followings are the reasons why more than half of freshmen think it not difficult to compose English essays and why more than 70%of sophomores and juniors believe it difficult to write English compositions. The reasons why 55.84%of freshmen think it not difficult to write English essays are focused on: 1) Having thorough training in basic language skills, for example, I can organize my thought according to the vocabulary and syntax stored in my mind. 2) Having positive
attitudes towards English writing, for example, English writing itself is a good opportunity for me to improve English. 3) Having good learning habits, for example, I often write some diaries and essays to express opinions in English.
More than 70%of sophomores and juniors think it difficult to write English essays and illustrated some of their reasons as follows, 1) Shortage of vocabulary and grammar knowledge. 2) Lacking of writing exercises in English. 3) Having no
self-confidence.
Table 4 The percentage of the second open-ended question
As for the second question, from table 4 it can be found that 63.64%of students do not feel anxiety or nervous when writing English compositions. And they give some reasons why they do not feel anxious as following: 1) Having enough
self-confidence. 2) Having positive attitudes towards English writing. 3) Having mastered some writing skills.
However, the other students (36.36%) report that they have experienced foreign language anxiety when writing English compositions. And they write down some situations in which they usually feel anxious.1) Being afraid of being evaluated. 2) Taking exams. 3) Having no selfconfidence. 4) Low level of English achievement.
4.3 Discussion
4.3.1 English writing anxiety experienced by English majors
The findings in this study give the answer to the first question. Chinese English major students including freshmen, sophomores and juniors, experience moderate level of anxiety (M=3.18) when writing in English. This finding is consistent with Daly and Miller’s (1975) and Pajares and Johnson’s study (1994).
When required to write in English, the students not only need to think over the main point and organize the thought of composition, but also choose appropriate words and sentence patterns to express their ideas. Therefore, the students are faced with different challenges on English writing, which can cause great pressure to them.
4.3.2 Difference in English writing anxiety among different
grades
Freshmen in English major get the lowest score (M=3.12) on SLWAI, while sophomore get the highest score (M=3.25) on SLWAI. From the questionnaire and qualitative study, there are some reasons as follows. Firstly, before freshmen enter colleges they have done so many English writing exercises with the purpose of preparing the college entrance examination. Secondly, they often recite some English sample compositions when freshmen were in grade three of senior high school.
4.4 Sources of English Writing Anxiety
4.4.1 Test anxiety
From the results of interview, 91.2% of the students expressed that in most cases they are likely to feel nervous when taking exams. Test anxiety is part of social
anxiety, particularly in an evaluation situation where learners are required to communicate in the target language. Students with test anxiety frequently experience cognitive interference and difficult to focus on the task at hand.
4.4.2 Poor writing skill
According to the results of interview, one student described his feeling:“when required to write an English essay, I do not know what should be written but enumerate words. Although sometimes I think of some materials, I do not know how to organize them, which part should be written in detail and which one should be written briefly.”Besides, some other students admit that they rarely practice English writing and even hardly form the habit of reading English materials. According to the results of the SLWAI, 38.3%of students strongly agree or agree with item5“Iusually try my best to avoid writing English compositions.”And 34.2%of the subjects strongly agreed or agreed with item 12“Unless I have no any other choice, I would not write compositions in English.”From the above, poor writing skill is an important source of writing anxiety.
4.4.3 Being afraid of negative evaluation (Cognitive Anxiety)
According to the analysis of the SLWAI and the reactions to the interview questions, it can be found that cognitive anxiety is one of the main sources of writing anxiety. As a usual, anxious students suffer from fear of being evaluated and judged on the basis of their writing performance. The reasons will be discussed in the following. In the process of writing, the content and form of the essay are determined by the students, and they may feel exposed and vulnerable to an audience. A student’s intelligence,
experience, education and meticulousness are all exposed in the composition. So students feel threatened and become anxious by the evaluation of their writing essays.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions can be made. Firstly, writing anxiety widely exists among Chinese college students including freshmen, sophomores and juniors in English major. Secondly, results of the present study show that there is no significant difference on English writing anxiety among freshman, sophomores and juniors. Last but not least, on the basis of students’ responses to the SLWAI and the interview, some main sources of writing anxiety have been mentioned. poor writing skills may be one of the most important sources. Besides, other sources of writing anxiety contain test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation(cognitive anxiety).
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