Learning Anxiety in Advanced Chinese Intensive Reading Course among Thai Local University Students: Take MFU as an Example

Abstract

Foreign language anxiety, as one of the key emotional variables affecting the success of foreign language learning, has also attracted much attention from the Chinese second language teaching community. This paper takes the learning anxiety in advanced Chinese intensive reading course among Thai local university students as the object of investigation. It mainly uses a research method that combines questionnaires and interviews to explore the current situation of learning anxiety, its influencing factors, and its relationship with academic achievement. The study shows that the learners’ overall learning anxiety is strong and individual differences are not obvious. In various anxieties, their test anxiety is relatively the strongest, and “translation” anxiety is obviously the strongest. Learners’ learning anxiety is obviously affected by their personality, learning motivation, academic self-evaluation, and to a certain extent their self-evaluation of Chinese proficiency, but it is obviously not affected by academic expectations. There is a strong linear negative correlation between the two variables of learners’ academic performance and learning anxiety. Based on the above research findings and combined with the interview results, we put forward suggestions to alleviate or reduce the learning anxiety of learners in advanced Chinese intensive reading course, in order to improve their academic achievement.