Constructing and validating the teaching strategies for alleviating Chinese EFL graduate students’ foreign language anxiety

Abstract

Effective learning strategies have been proven to be advantageous to lower learners’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) and improve their language proficiency. However, many studies have devoted to students’ learning strategies but ignored the important role of teachers in reducing FLA. In addition, the effectiveness of the FLA-reducing strategies proposed by these studies has rarely been verified in natural classroom environment. The present study was conducted to explore the systematic effects of the teaching strategies on FLA after constructing a 34-item observation instrument Teaching Strategies Intervention Scale (TSIS), and investigated the changes of 306 English as a foreign language (EFL) graduate students’ English learning anxiety levels influenced by the anxiety-reducing teaching strategies in China. Results showed that the student participants’ communication anxiety, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation except for anxiety about English class in the experimental group were alleviated significantly after the teaching intervention. More specifically, findings indicated that test anxiety was the variable most affected by the teaching strategies, while the teaching strategies employed in this study were found effective and feasible. Finally, EFL teachers played a critical role in alleviating students’ FLA. Pedagogical implications of the findings are provided.