On Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School 中学生英语考试焦虑

On Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School中学生英语考试焦虑Abstract: Test anxiety has aroused the attention by educational fields and academic fields. It is estimated that the field of test anxiety research is approximately fifty years old. Test anxiety is one of the emotional disorders for middle school students. Immoderate test anxiety is a negative mood, which belongs to psychological problem. It not only affects middle school students' test scores, but also affects middle school students' physical and mental health. Based on the definitions, classifications and reasons of test anxiety, the author of this paper brings forward such methods as cognitive adjustment, emotional adjustment and behavioural adjustment. In detail, the author adopted cognitive-attentional training and self-confident training in regard to cognitive adjustment, adopted communication and educational instruction in terms of emotional adjustment, and adopted progressive muscle relaxation training and deep breathing training in terms of behavioural adjustment. This paper mainly focuses on those methods and the author used those methods in reality. In conclusion, those methods tend to make students have the right attitude towards English exams, which contribute to alleviating students' test anxiety.Key words: test anxiety; middle school students; adjustment; training摘要：考试焦虑已引起教育界和学术界的关注，考试焦虑的研究大约有五十年的历史。

考试焦虑是中学生情绪障碍之一。

不当的考试焦虑是一种消极的情绪，它属于心理问题。

考试焦虑不仅影响学生的考试成绩，而且影响学生身心健康发展。

基于对考试焦虑的定义，分类及其缘由，作者提出认知调节法，情感调节法，及其行为调节法。

在这篇文章中作者采取的认知调节法包括认知注意训练法和自信训练法，情感调节法包括谈话法和教育指导法，行为调节法包括逐步肌肉放松训练和深呼吸训练。

这篇论文主要研究这些方法，作者把这些方法用于实践。

总的来说，这些方法使中学生对英语考试有了正确的认识，缓解了中学生英语考试焦虑，从而引导中学生身心健康发展。

关键字：中学生；考试焦虑；调控；训练方法Content1. Introduction (1)2. Basic Information about Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School (3)2.1 Definitions of test anxiety (3)2.2 Types of test anxiety (3)3. Reasons of Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School (5)3.1 The external factors of anxiety of English exams in middle School (5)3.2 The Internal factors of anxiety of English exams in middle School (6)4.Methods of Reducing Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School (9)4.1 Methods of cognitive adjustment (9)4.1.1 Cognitive-attentional training (9)4.1.2 Self-confident training (9)4.2 Methods of emotional adjustment (10)4.2.1 Communication (11)4.2.2 Educational instruction (12)4.3 Methods of behavioural adjustment (12)4.3.1 Progressive muscle relaxation training (12)4.3.2 Deep breathing training (13)5. Significance (14)6. Conclusion (15)Works Cited (17)AcknowledgementsMany people have offered me the valuable help in my thesis writing. My sincere thanks first goes to my academic supervisor, for her constructive suggestions, valuable ideas, insightful comments, patient guidance, and encouragement. Without her strong support, this thesis could not have been completed.I am so deeply indebted to all the teachers in the English Department. Their wise guidance and tender instructions have been of great help to my study.I also acknowledge my thanks to my friends for their tender care, generous help, and meaningful comments on the study.Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my parents for their support, love and encouragement which have supported me to overcome difficulties and achieve the final success.1.IntroductionEnglish language is an international language, its learning is popular in the world, so is in China. English exams become more and more important to teaching and learning and English exams are a process of English learning, which means English exams are so important and necessary to some extent for students themselves. However, some English teachers, some students themselves and their parents do not deal with the English exams in a right way, they pay much attention to the scores of English exams regardless of the other aspects. Some middle schools' English teachers often classify students' level by means of English exams, which results in the anxiety of English exams in middle school. The current situation of middle school students in English exams is not pleasurable. English teachers usually adopt diagnostic tests, which identify students' strength and weakness as oral English exams. The situation of using diagnostic tests in middle school to classify students at different levels is to lead to the anxiety of middle school students in English exams. Nevetheless, many students are afraid of the diagnostic tests because of psychological problems. In addition, the English contents are too heavy to bear for middle school students to some extent because of time pressure, knowledge preparation and other reasons of students. The unsuitable testing environment is another current situation. The English tests are in a high- stakes environment instead of a relaxing and free testing environment, which leads to students' anxiety and nervousness to English exams(郑日昌、陈永胜，65-72).It is no surprise that students are affected by test anxiety. Test anxiety has both negative and positive effects on students in middle school. This paper mainly talks about the negative effects of anxiety of English exams in middle school. In general, test anxiety not only affects students' performance, but also affects students' physical and mental development. Test anxiety is an example of a mal-adaptive anxiety. This form of anxiety is experienced as a disruption of the capacity of students to think, concentrate, and remember. And it is usually accompanied by such physiological symptoms as muscular tension, headaches, and even nausea(Mitchell and Ingham 69). Test anxiety is a state in which an individual’s performance on tests is inhibited. It affects students' listening, speaking, reading and writing performance accordingly. According toBruch' research, the high test anxious students are liable to perform more poorly than the low test anxious students, particurlarly when the tests are administered under stressful, evaluative conditions. The difference in performance is largely due to the attentional focus between the high and low test anxious students. The low test anxious students focus upon the task relevent variables during the task performance, while the high test anxious students who are focusing internally on self-evaluation, self-deprecating thoughts, and an increased awareness of one's autonomic responses.The present thesis mainly states the definitions and types about the theoretical information of test anxiety, the reasons of middle school students' test anxiety and the methods of alleviating and reducing the anxiety of English exams in middle school. It also relates the significance of alleviating of test anxiety in middle school.2.Basic Information about Anxiety of English Exams in Middle School2.1 Definitions of test anxietyDifferent researchers may have different opinions about test anxiety, so the definitions of test anxiety are various. This paper states some of definitions.Test anxiety may be defined as a situation-specific personality trait that contains a cognitive component, called "worry", and an affective arousal-related component, called “emotionality”(Schwarzer 4). This concept emphasizes the cognitive determinants of students' anxiety reactions in evaluative situations and assumes.Test anxiety is a special case of general anxiety consisting of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses related to fear of failure(Sapp 183).The term "test anxiety" as a scientific construct, refers to the set of phenomenological, physiological, and behavioral responses that accompany concern about possible negative consequences or failure on an exam or similar evaluative situation(Zeidner 17).According to the above definitions, test anxiety includes three facets, that is, cognitive facet, affective facet, and behavioural facet. They are the components of test anxiety.2.2 Types of Test AnxietyTest anxiety includes cognitive facet, affective facet, and behavioural facet. Each facet represents a distinct response channel through which test anxiety may be expressed.First, cognitive facet of anxiety relates two lines of research. One is cognitive excesses research, which involves self-preoccupation and self-focuses ruminative thoughts. Another is cognitive deficits, involving the reduction in cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and retrieval.Students who have the symptoms of cognitive excesses and cognitive deficits are able to become anxiety during English exams.Second, the affective facet is made up of subjective manifestations of emotional arousal and tension as well as objective somatic symptoms of physiological arousal(Zeidner 67). The two components of affective facet are inter-influential. In other words, the subjective feelings of tension increases with the increasing of objective symptoms. Taking band-four of English exam as an example, the physiological responses of emotional arousal during testing usually have thesymptoms of increasing heart rate, rate of respiration, gastric sensations, feelings of nausea, sweating, shaking and trembling.Third, behavioral facet is another type of test anxiety in addition to cognitive and affective facet on test anxiety. Test anxiety may also be expressed in a variety of overt behavior. According to the survey, deficient study and test-taking skills and procrastination are the key behavioral expressions of test anxiety.Test-anxious students are said to be characterized by bebavioral deficits in a wide variety of academic skills, including utilizing class time, taking and organizing class notes, preparing for exams, integrating the subject matter, and maximizing their use of time on objective exams(Culler and Holahan 48). It is said that high-test anxious students are to have more difficulties than low-test anxious students in terms of behavioral facet on test anxiety.3. Reasons of Anxiety of English Exams in Middle SchoolGenerally speaking, the reasons that has caused the English test anxiety can be summed up two aspects, including the external factors and the internal factors. It is very difficult to control those aspects to some extent, and the possible reasons should be paid attention.3.1 The external factors of anxiety of English exams in middle schoolThe external factors that affected the anxiety of middle school students in English exams mainly include school, family and social environment(叶秀丹，41). Those external factors are difficult to control to some extent.First, the school environment has important effects on the anxiety of English exams in middle school. School is a most frequent place for students to take tests, and it is closely related to the test anxiety. School is to exaggerate the function of the exams and to evaluate students by the trend of over-emphasis on the scores of tests because of the exam-oriented educational model for a long time, which results in the misunderstanding of the middle school students on the function and significance of exams and the over-emphasis on the scores of tests so as to lead to the anxiety and fear in terms of such exams as English exams. The continuous English tests, not only make serious test anxiety for students, but also lead to a decline for student's achievement and performance. The phenomenon of the over-emphasis on the scores of the exams, the phenomenon of one-sided pursuit of further educational rate, the competition among the students, and the nervous atmosphere of the inside examination room would also be the school reasons of test anxiety for middle school students in English exams.Second, family has an important influence on middle school students. It is the emotional dependent center for the middle school students. It is the parents who are the first teachers for their lovely children. Parents' educational idea and educational manner affect their children's idea and manner to a great extent. At present, Chinese society has the educational idea of focusing on the exams and regarding tests' scores as the center universally. The parents are eager for their children to make a good progress and pass an examination for the top of high school and top of university. However, such parents' expectations have the possibility to lead to the misleading to the students because of various reasons, which finally causes the students to have a very big examination stress that results in test anxiety. In addition, parents' educationalmanner is too severe for their children and lacks the democracy. The phenomenon makes the children fear their parents so that the pressure is over-sized for the students, which make students nervous.Third, social atmosphere is another factor which causes students' test anxiety. The whole society's value orientation, the national policy and system, especially, the educational system affect the school educational mode, the family educational mode and students' attitude and cognitive assessment to the tests, which results in the different degree of test anxiety. It is common that English learners regard English exams as a way to prove whether they are learning well or not, and take scores as the only criterion to the students. Many students are liable to be in the situation of test anxiety accordingly. Moreover, the social cultural element will also cause the test anxiety. Taking the culture between China and America as an example, China and America are totally different in terms of the traffic direction. Chinese people walk on the right, while the situation is directly different in America. When taking an English exam to make a choice to choose the right traffic direction between China and America, we can not make a correct answer if we do not know the above culture, which may be leading to the test anxiety.3.2 The internal factors of anxiety of English exams in middle schoolThe external factors that have caused the anxiety of middle school students in English exams have many dimensions. While the study focuses on three aspects, that is, the personality of middle school students, the well-preparation and test skill of middle school students and the cognitive evaluation of middle school students.First, the personality of middle school students. The personality is closely related to students' test anxiety. There are three types of personality usually, that is, the type of introversion, the type of extroversion and the type between the introversion and extroversion. The distinction between the introvert personality and the extrovert personality can be identified by people. Students who are the introvert personality are usually quiet, prefer reading to meeting people, they may be have few but close friends and usually avoid excitement. Conversely, students who are extrovert personality are sociable, active and lively, they have many friends and need excitement, they are sensation-seekers and risk-takers. Students who are the type of personality between introversion and extroversion are both quiet and active, theyhave the personality of introversion and extroversion. The extrovert students are more liable to be sensational and excited than the introvert students, they are more liable to feel the feeling of anxiety and difficult to pass an exam.Second, the well-preparation and test skill of middle school students.Middle school students' well-preparation and test skill have important influence on their English exams. The insufficient preparation and the improper test skill will cause pressure and lead to anxiety. The preparation includes the well-prepared knowledge, the physical preparation, psychological preparation, and material preparation and so on. English exams usually consist of listening, speaking, reading and writing at a large scale. So it is very important for students to make a good preparation in regard to knowledge. Students should also pay attention to the accumulation and grasping of knowledge. The preparation can be taking long hours to practice similar tasks, listening to English radio programs, speaking louder to the mirror, reading English newspapers, and writing English diary on a weekly basis and so on. It would affect students' English exams and lead to test anxiety if students do not have the enough knowledge about the preparation facets. Students who participate in the English exams think that their anxiety will disappear gradually if they are familiar with the contents the exams had. In addition, students should also make preparations on physical preparation, psychological preparation, material preparation and other facets as soon as possible(刘向平，80-102). Test skill's training is also very important for students to pass an English exam. Students should carry on such training of English exams as listening, speaking, reading, and writing before taking an English exam. Students who are good at those skills are more liable to pass an exam and have low anxiety.Third, the cognitive evaluation of the middle school students. Cognitive evaluation refers to the right understanding to test anxiety in this thesis. The correct cognitive evaluation is to form the correct understanding of evaluation of the English learning and examination. The students' correct cognitive evaluation is closely related to the English learning and examination. Students who do not have the correct cognitive evaluation may have the English learning anxiety, which result in the pressure and anxiety of English exams. English learning is not only to pass exams and get high scores. English exams are used to investigate the knowledge that students have controlled. While some students treat the English learning and English exams in an improper way. Sometimes, they learn English with the only purpose of high scores, theyregard English exams as the only way of acquiring high scores instead of other aspects. If students fail to pass exams or do not acquire high scores, students will have the negative feeling of the stress of English learning and English exams.At the same time, students do put too much emphasis on test scores, and they hold that score is the only criterion for measuring the quality of learning, so students should have the correct cognitive evaluation so as to have appropriate assessment of their ability to reduce high test anxiety. Students should not only put emphasis on examination results. In addition, students are to make appropriate adjustments to the expected level so that students have self-expectations and the actual level of adaptation, which can alleviate the psychological stress and overcome the anxiety of middle school students in English exams.4.Methods of Reducing Anxiety of English Exams in middle schoolSeveral strategies and techniques have been already developed in the area of test anxiety reduction and they have been applied experimentally with different results(Sarason and Schwarzer 131). Test anxiety is a kind of psychological problem. This thesis aims at solving the psychological problem, alleviating the anxiety of middle school students in English exams. The approaches adopted in this thesis are basing on the types of the anxiety, and those approaches are used in reality to help students to alleviate test anxiety during teaching practice.4.1 Methods of cognitive adjustmentNow it is presented two kinds of cognitive therapy aimed at correcting cognitive distortions in anxiety of middle school students in English exams, that is, cognitive-attentional training and self-confident training.First, method of cognitive-attentional training. A fundamental premise of the cognitive-attentional training perspective is that training high-test-anxious subjects to attend to task-relevant stimuli to reduce self-reported worry and tension and consequently enhance their cognitive task performance(Wine 368).During the teaching practice at one of Lang fang middle schools, the author of this thesis adopted method of cognitive-attentional training to alleviate students' test anxiety. The author often told students to absorb themselves in the task at hand as soon as possible and avoid thinking about other things. Li Xi was a female student and had learned English for seven years. She was from urban family and active in English class, but she was not concentrated on task. The author did an experiment on Li Xi during an oral English exam to alleviate the anxiety of English exams in middle school. The first time, the author asked her to read a paragraph, and she was so nervous and anxious during reading. She made much mistakes such as the incorrect pronunciation, the incorrect tone and so on. While the second time, the author asked her to read a paragraph again, she just made a little mistakes, and her nervous feeling reduced gradually. Then the author asked her to read another paragraph, she did not make any mistakes and she was not anxious at all. From this cognitive-attentional training, the author learned that students should pay attention to the task as soon as possible.Second, method of self-confident training. Self-confidence is extremely important inalmost every aspect of our lives, and so many students struggle to find it. Sadly, which can be a psychological problem. Students who lack self-confidence are difficult to pass exams when taking exams. Building self-confidence can help students to solve psychological problem and make students alleviate test anxiety.The method of self-confident training to alleviate test anxiety was used during teaching practice. One's level of self-confidence can show in many ways, such as body language, how students speak, what students say, and so on. The author made an experiment on the high self-confident students and the low self-confident students by means of the method of self-confident training. Taking Li Ming and Wu Mei, the representatives of the high self-confident students and low self-confident students, as an example. The former spoke clearly, held his head high, answered questions assuredly, and readily admited when he did not know something. Li Ming was self-confident. While the latter lacked self-confidence, she always lowed her head and her voice was not clear at all when answered questions, she was not confident at all. This situation will lead to test anxiety because of lacking self-confidence. During teaching practice, the author always encouraged students when they answered questions or wrote encouraging words on students' textbooks. Here is an example.T: What can you see in the picture, Wu Mei?Ss: I can see a box, a big box.T: Yes, very good. Is it heavy?Ss: Yes, it is very heavy. It is two hundred kg.T: Can I carry it?Ss: No, you can’t.T: Y ou are right. I can’t carry it. Why? Because it is too heavy to carry.After finishing above dialogue, the author encouraged Wu Mei and said to her ,"well good, you had done a good job". From this method, Wu Mei became confident gradually and achieved high performances in English exams. In addition to encouraging students to become self- confidence, the author always told students to speak to themselves such confident words as " I can do it, I am sure and other encouraging words ."4.2 Methods of emotional adjustmentNow two kinds of emotional therapy are presented with the purpose of correctingemotional distortions in middle school students' English test anxiey, that is, method of communication, and method of educational instruction.First, method of communication. In this paper, communication refers to talking between students and teachers. Communication is very important in the process of teaching. It can help students build confidence, solve psychological problem and alleviate test anxiety. Teachers should communicate with students attentively as soon as possible. Teachers are able to understand student's inner world by means of communication. They are the best audience to the students to some extent. Teachers should have the patience to permit students to express opinions, students who express their opinions freely can be more confident than those who are not permitted to express their opinions. Teachers should communicate with students and give the moderate supports to students when students are puzzled. If the classroom is full of students' and teachers' laughter, the classroom's atmosphere would be harmonious, students would not anxious during the process of teaching, and they would not anxious during exams. If each student is respected in classroom, and has the sense of belonging, students would regard study as a happy event, and they would not anxious at all.The author of this paper used the method of communication to help students to alleviate English test anxiety during teaching practice. Taking Zhou Yun as an example, Zhou Yun was an obedient student, but she was liable to become anxious when taking English exams. The author communicated with her before taking English exams, in the process of English exams and after finishing English exams. Before taking an English exam, the author communicated with her for twenty minutes, and told her that she should adjust herself correctly and should regard the English exams as a way of learning instead of just achieving high scores, then she became easy gradually. The author spoke to her that she should not worry and try her best to do as soon as possible in the process of English exams. She did better than before in the English exams and had a good performance. The author communicated with her again after the English exams. She became more easygoing. The author adopted the same method to alleviate and reduce Zhou Yun' test anxiety in another English exam. This time she did better than last time, Zhou Yun's feeling of test anxiety disappeared gradually. The author also used this method to help students who were easy to be anxious when taking an English exam, and it was proved that communicational approach is very useful and important in the process of helping studentsalleviate test anxiety, thus students could build healthy psychology.Second, method of educational instruction. It mainly refers to the educational instruction of schools to students as well as teachers to students in the paper.Test anxiety is a kind of psychological disease. Middle schools' leaders and teachers should pay much attention to the psychological disease and educate students learn healthy psychological knowledge so that the psychological educational instruction is held at school(鲁中义，316-317). Educational instruction can be used to alleviate the anxiety of middle school students in English exams. Some of schools and teachers put emphasis on the educational instruction to alleviate test anxiety, especially in important examinations.In order to consolidate the knowledge that students had learned before, English exams are always carried on every month in middle school, teachers and students called it the monthly exam as usual. Some schools launched psychological class to hold educational instruction to alleviate test anxiety. The author of this paper used this method during teaching practice. She instructed the students to make good preparations before taking English exams, educated them regard English exams as a way of learning, and instructed that knowledge can consolidate by means of English exams. The author took the educational instruction in the first monthly exam , and so did the second monthly exam. As a result, the degree of the students' anxiety in English exams decreased obviously.4.3 Methods of behavioural adjustmentBehavioral approaches have been used quite infrequently in test anxiety intervention and research. Method of progressive muscle relaxation training and deep breathing training belong to the behavioral approach.First, progressive muscle relaxation training. Relaxation is a popular and frequently used technique in its own right, as well as in combination with other therapies, largely because it is easy to train and it is applicable across most evaluative anxiety-arousing circumstances (Deffenbacher and Suinn 352). Progressive muscle relaxation training appears to be the most influential method of relaxation training in test anxiety intervention(Jacobson 353). According to Jacobson' study, Students are often given homework assignments of practicing relaxation for about half an hour on a daily basis at a time when they can be in a comfortable position and relatively free from distractions.。