An Investigation of Xenoglossophobia among Chinese Postgraduates

Abstract

The learners of English language frequently convey the feeling of anxiety, nervousness and edginess. The realization of EFL (English as a Foreign language), ESL (English as a Second language) or TL (target language) anxiety among university postgraduates is essential. Once understood, the factors causing anxiety, nervousness and jumpiness can be mitigated and desired aims and goals of communicating in EFL and ESL can be attained. This study sets out to examine the English language anxiety or Xenoglossophobia among Chinese postgraduates.  The participants were selected from department of foreign languages of two well-reputed Chinese universities in Wuhan. Besides, students’ three demographic variables have been used to investigate the English language anxiety i.e. age, gender and time span or years spent in learning English language. Apart from that, three pivotal features of FL or SL, namely communication apprehension (CA), fear of negative evaluation (FNA) and  general  feeling  of  anxiety (GFA)  derived  from  Foreign  Language  Classroom  Anxiety  scale (FLCAS) devised by Horwitz were also a part of this investigation which was modified to English Language  Anxiety Scale (ELAS) as the focal point of this investigation is on L2 or EL. The quantitative research technique was employed for collecting data from 116 Chinese postgraduates majoring in English, both male and female whose ages vary from 20 to 26. The results obtained were analyzed utilizing diverse statistical analysis i.e. Pearson correlation, descriptive statistics, and Multiple Regression. The findings revealed that Chinese learners of English majors experience moderate level of anxiety and no significant correlation was found between English language anxiety and demographic factors. Eventually, Chinese postgraduates were found experiencing mainly “GFA” through Multiple Regression analysis in English as a foreign language.