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Abstract: A large body of research has been done to investigate the effect of affective factors on language teaching and learning.More attention is given to language anxiety, which is fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language.Many previous studies demonstrate that language anxiety has negative effects on language learning.This study, based on the investigation of the reasons that may lead to anxiety, is focused on the training of metacognitive strategies for the students.The author offered positive suggestions in the process of teaching,aiming at creating a relaxing and pleasant classroom atmosphere.
Key Words ：listening anxiety reasons for anxiety training of metacognitive strategies
Over the past decades, an upsurge of research on foreign language learning has advanced in parallel with an increasing interest in the role of anxiety in second language learning.It is believed that anxiety is quite possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructs the learning process (Arnold & Brown, 1999).Anxiety is universal human experiences intrinsic to the human condition and the nature of the specific environmental stimuli evoking anxiety emotions has changed remarkably over the years.In our modern technological and achievement-oriented society, however, anxiety is evoked largely by social-evaluative and ambiguous environmental situations.Anxiety is associated with negative feelings such as uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt,apprehension and tension.A large body of previous research has shown that affective variables,including anxiety, attitudes, and motivation, influence language achievement (Gardner & MacIntyre,1993; Skehan, 1991; Spolsky, 1989).The relationship between language anxiety and the foreign language performance has been proved by some researchers negatively correlated (Adia, 1994).The higher the foreign language anxiety is, the poorer the foreign language performance is.That is to say, learners are more or less influenced by their negative feelings and do not learn effectively when being anxious or stressed.In many cases, their anxiety reaction impedes their ability to perform successfully in a foreign language class.Therefore, we can say that affective variables play an important role in language learning.
In previous studies of learners’ anxiety in listening classrooms, many researchers have tried to figure out the reasons and apply some training of strategies to reduce language anxiety only from the respects of learners’ cognition, psychology, character, etc.Based on the investigation of the reasons that may lead to the students’ anxiety, this study is mainly focused on the training of metacognitive strategies for the students in listening classrooms, aiming at reducing listening anxiety level.
Listening comprehension is a highly integrative skill.It plays an important role in the process of language acquisition, “facilitating the emergence of other language skills” (Vandergrift,1999).For these reasons, an awareness of effective listening comprehension can help the learner capitalize on the language input they are receiving.Listening in a foreign language is a less thoroughly studied skill in general.We know even less about the interaction between listening and learning anxiety.Some teachers are unaware that listening exercises may arouse a debilitating anxiety in their students (Vogely, 1999).It is asserted in many researches that listening comprehension can indeed be highly anxiety provoking.
Moreover, among the reasons that students develop anxiety about listening are a negative self-concept with regard to listening and low self-esteem regarding their ability in listening (Joiner,1986).Rubin (1994) has analyzed the factors that affect listening comprehension, and classified them according to such characteristics as text, interlocutor, task, listener and process.Among the listener characteristics are the affective factors in the learning context.It is also stated that the role of affect in listening appears to be related to attention and the functioning of memory—two areas of mental activity that have a close connection to language learning.In a learning context,past emotional reactions will affect future performance.
With the negative influence of anxiety on foreign language learning, researchers have made some investigations into the sources of foreign language anxiety.The sources of anxiety are of various kinds and reasons for anxiety are complicated as well.In terms of Young’ s (1991) review of anxiety research, some reasons for foreign language anxiety are demonstrated:
1.Personal and interpersonal anxieties, such as self-esteem and competitiveness.People with different personality range from extroverts to introverts.An extrovert personality can be defined as one whose interests are mainly directed outwards to the external environment rather than inwards to the thoughts and feelings of the self, whereas an introvert personality can be defined as one whose interests are mainly directed inwards to the thoughts and feelings of the self.Schumann (1976) asserts that if everything else is equal, extroverts do better in speaking than introverts.
2.Classroom procedures.Horwitz et al.(1986) suggest that certain types of classroom activities may promote language anxiety, particularly those that expose the students to negative evaluations by the teacher or by peers.It is therefore possible that anxiety and self-confidence in the second language classroom are intimately linked to classroom processes (Clement, D’rnyei & Noels, 1994).
3.Language testing.On the one hand, language testing anxiety can be part of communication anxiety, particularly in an evaluative situation where the student is asked to communicate in the target language; on the other hand, it can also occur in non-communicative situation.Sarason(1984) states that “test anxiety is the tendency to become alarmed about the consequences of inadequate performance on a test or other evaluation”, regardless of whether the fears are realistic.Aida (1994) summarizes that students with test anxiety frequently experience cognitive interference and have a difficult time focusing on the task at hand.
There is a general consensus among researchers in the fields of education and second language learning about the important role that metacognition plays in enhancing thinking and comprehension.Metacognition is part of cognitive development, and is both a product and producer of the latter.It enables learners to participate actively in regulating and managing their own learning, provides a personal perspective on individual learning styles and abilities, and is amenable to classroom instruction.Learners with high degrees of metacognitive awareness are better at processing and storing new information, finding the best ways to practice and reinforce what they have learned.In essence, metacognition is both self-reflection and self-direction(Vandergrift et al., 2006).
According to O’ Malley and Chamot (1990), metacognitive strategies can be classified into three categories: thinking about the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring of comprehension or production while it is taking place, and self-evaluation after the learning activity has been finished.Vandergrift (1999) divides metacognitive strategies into three categories: planning, monitoring, and evaluating, which are also in the classification system that the author of this study bases her instruction on in the experiment.
Now the three aspects of metacognitive strategies in listening comprehension will be discussed in detail.
Planning for the listening means that in pre-listening activities, the students need to bring to consciousness of metacognitive strategies.First, they need to be prepared for what they will hear and what they are expected to do.Second, a purpose for listening must be established so that students know the specific information they need to listen for and the degree of detail required.Using all the available information, the students can make predictions to anticipate what they might hear.These pre-listening activities are helpful for the students to make decisions about what to focus on and direct their attention to meaning while listening.In this process, the teacher can encourage discussions with the whole class or in pairs so as to foster autonomy.
Monitoring is the most important metacognitive process.It requires the listener to monitor their own comprehension for success or failure.Periodic practice in decision-making skills and strategy use can sharpen inferencing skills and help the listener to monitor more effectively.Such strategies can be practiced during this phase: logical inferencing and appropriate use of elaboration or word knowledge, and word derivation skills.In the meantime, error analysis can often help the listener to avoid repeating the mistakes and gradually improve their mastery of the new language or understand more about their own use of learning strategies.They need to check, verify or correct their comprehension or performance in the course of a listening task.The students need to be instructed that efficient listeners often use skimming, scanning or guessing skills to judge what will come next, and correct any misinterpretations as they move ahead.
Evaluation, on the one hand, enables the listeners to check, reflect, analyze, evaluate and find out the problems and the reasons in listening process; on the other hand, it enables them to summarize the whole listening activities so that they can evaluate the results of decisions made during a listening task.The teacher can encourage self-evaluation and reflection by asking the students to assess the effectiveness of strategies used.Group or class discussions on the approach taken by different students can also stimulate reflection and worthwhile evaluation.Such discussions can make the students think about whether his comprehension or use of strategies is proper and acceptable or whether his listening skills or performance have been enhanced.
To sum up, planning strategy, monitoring strategy, and evaluating strategy can be used independently, but at the same time, they also interact with each other and can be used simultaneously in the listening process.The training of metacognitive strategies can help the students become more aware of the process of listening.Focusing on the process as well as on the product of listening can help the students to reflect on their learning, and encourage them consciously to adjust their strategies.Moreover, the use of listening strategies can make authentic texts more accessible in the early stages of learning a language, so that the process becomes more relevant and interesting for the learners (Vandergrift, 1999).
The 64 participants came from two classes the author taught at Beijing Normal University(BNU), with 32 in each class.It is generally believed that listening is most likely to arouse anxiety and it takes a relatively long time to overcome it, therefore, the promotion of a low-stress language learning environment must be an important priority for the language teacher.Some strategies have to be applied on the students’ part in order to alleviate the negative effects of anxiety on listening and thus to make the classroom a safe and secure place for learning English.The author conducted a 15-week research.The general approach used in this study mainly consists of a twice-used test-Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS) and teaching observations.The research was carried out in the following procedures:
First of all, the author tested the students’ listening anxiety level in both the experimental class and the control class for the first time at the beginning of the semester, by means of FLLAS;
Secondly, the author systematically instructed the students in the experimental class to receive the training of metacognitive strategies; at the same time, the author attempted to offer positive suggestions in listening process so as to create a relaxing and comfortable classroom atmosphere;
Thirdly, the author tested the students’ anxiety level in both classes for the second time at the end of the semester;
Finally, the author presented and discussed the results of the experiment by analyzing the data processed by SPSS.
The pedagogical sequence of pre-listening, listening and post-listening activities was used.This sequence of teaching strategies could guide students through the mental processes for successful listening comprehension, and promote the acquisition of metacognitive strategies in the three categories: planning, monitoring and evaluating.Based on this metacognitive strategy centered instructional model, the research was conducted in the following procedures:
1.The new listening model was introduced to students so that they had a clear idea about the purpose, procedures and effectiveness of the listening comprehension strategies.
2.To promote students’ general cognitive awareness was an important step for the teacher to implement cognitive strategies.The teacher first explained the cognitive strategies in the experimental class with the introduction of Schraw’s (2001) SEM (strategy evaluation matrix) as an aid-list.
3.Since the students had a clear idea of the cognitive strategies and most of them were able to use them skillfully in listening practice, the next step that the teacher took was to introduce metacognitive strategies to the students, which were considered to be a higher level of governing the other learning strategies and to involve exercising “executive control” over one’s language learning.Thus, the Metacognitive Strategy Table (MST) was introduced and applied in class with the detailed explanation and modeling item by item in listening practice.As before, the MST was also printed as a teaching and learning material for each student to have a copy so that they could have a better understanding of these strategies and constantly practice them while listening both in class or out of class.The teacher systematically chose some items from MST to explain and strengthened them by modeling.Some corresponding listening materials were carefully selected for the students to apply these strategies into practice.
By analyzing the data processed by SPSS from the two classes, the students provided with the training of metacognitive strategies in listening process reduced their anxiety level whereas the students of the other class did not.The difference of the anxiety level in listening practice between the experimental class and the control class may attribute to the training of metacognitive strategies as well as the teacher’s positive suggestions in teaching.The experimental class received the training of metacognitive strategies whereas the control class only received ordinary training which was just related to the use of cognitive strategies.From the comparison, it can be concluded that the training and application of metacognitive strategies is the main reason that results in the difference between the two classes.Therefore it can be claimed that the students’listening anxiety can be alleviated to a great extent by applying the metacognitive strategies in listening practice.
Most college students experience anxiety in listening classrooms, but the training of metacognitive strategies can reduce the students’ listening anxiety level.What’s more, the teacher needs to become aware of their own feelings as well as those of their students’.Positive suggestions in teaching process also play an important role in creating a relaxing classroom atmosphere, which is helpful for the students to focus more on the listening task itself rather than on their own emotional state.
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