Teaching Anxiety and Foreign Language Anxiety Among Chinese College English Teachers

Abstract

This study explored teaching anxiety and teacher foreign language anxiety (FLA) in 151 Chinese college English teachers in relation to their individual characteristics. Analyses of data collected from mixed-form questionnaires revealed the following major findings: (a) Major causes for teaching anxiety were concern about classroom teaching, research, other work and promotion, and interest and confidence in teaching, and major sources for teacher FLA were apprehension of speaking English, fear of negative outcomes, and confidence in English competence; (b) the participants of various backgrounds suffered from varying degrees of teaching anxiety and teacher FLA; (c) gender, age, educational level, English proficiency, and experience of visiting/studying in English-speaking countries significantly affected the participants’ teaching anxiety and teacher FLA levels; and (d) anxiety seriously affected the participants’ work and life. Evidently, anxiety is an important issue faced by university language teachers and needs to be further researched and seriously handled.