Empirical Study of Second Language Writing Anxiety and Writing Proficiency Among English Majors

Research on foreign language writing anxiety began in the 1970s and Krashen believes that anxiety is the most harmful affective factor influencing the learning outcome of second language acquisition. Writing anxiety has been identified as a significant construct for understanding the factors that influence students’ development of writing skill. The major purpose of this study is to investigate the overall situation of writing anxiety among college English majors and its impact on writing proficiency, explore the differences in writing proficiency among students at different levels of writing anxiety, and identify potential sources of writing anxiety on English writing proficiency. The author investigates 226 junior students in English department from Wuhan Technology and Business University by using random sampling survey method. The English writing proficiency of the students is measured by their TEM-4 writing scores and the questionnaire adopted the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), along with a half-open individual interview. The results show that English majors experience a moderate level of writing anxiety; there is significantly negative correlation between writing anxiety and subjects’ writing proficiency; and there is significant difference in English writing achievement among the students with different anxiety levels. It is also discovered that lack of writing practices, lack of adequate writing knowledge, test anxiety, and lack of writing confidence may contribute a lot to anxiety in writing achievement. Eventually, the author proposes some implications to relieve English majors’ writing anxiety.