2008 4 31 2

CELEA JournalBim onthly

Apr 2008 Vol1 No 3 2

THE EFFECTS OF AFFECTIVE FACTORS ON ORAL ENGLISH FLUENCY OF COLLEGE ENGLISH STUDENTS
Zheng Yurong Yin Nan Harbin Engineering University

Abstract anxiety self The present paper investigated ho w affective factors mainly consisting of m otivation
estee m and personality ffected College English students oral English fluencyAseries of experiments were a designed and six indices of oral fluency were e m ployed The findings indicated that affective factors in various degrees determined oral English productionThose less anxious nstru mentally m otivated students i with higher self estee m tend to be m ore fluent speakersHo wever personality factors hether the students w be introverted or extroverted ear little reference to oral English fluency in this study in the Chinese context b Key w ords affective factors luency luency indices f f

1 Introduction
In the 1970s hen hu m anism was the focus of linguistic research and language teaching profession w m ore and m ore researchers and teachers began to realize thatin language acquisition ffective variables a w hich are so closely related to the learners language proficiency play the equally im portant role as cognitive variablesIn recent years the correlations between affective factors and second language acquisition have been extensively investigatedA variety of research concluded that affective factors such as m otivation and anxiety have great im pact on successful language learning Dornyei 2003 Arnold 2000 pointed out that selfestee m is a basic require m ent for successfully cognitive and affective activity In oral production Kitano 2001 found that there exists a correlation between low self perceived ability and high extent of foreign language anxiety in Japanese EFLlearners There are quite a nu m ber of studies on anxiety in Chinese context Guan Wei s too 2003 investigation on non-nglish majors proved that E language anxiety is negatively associated with the students spoken English Cheng Xiaoli and Zhang Mei 2004 discovered students levels of anxiety have negative effect on both language proficiency and oral performance So me m ore researches provide the similar conclusions as aboveXue 2003 Xiang 2004 Cheng et al 2004 etcThus he purpose of this paper is to report an em pirical research into the effects of a wider range of t affective factors m otivation nxiety a self esteem and personality College English Students oral fluency so on as to find out what are these affective factors that may hinder or facilitate their oral English production How do these affective factors influence students oral production

2Research Rationale
2 The definitions of Fluency and Affective Factors 1
Fluency eflecting a second language learner s ability of using the target language to m eet the social r de m and of co m m unication one of the central is concepts and the final goal of language teaching and learningA nu m ber of researchers have studied oral fluency and defined fluency in different ways Bru mfit 1984 Sajavaara 1987 Lennon 1990 and Sch midt 1992 put forward their w orking definitions of L2 fluencyBru mfit points out that fluency is the m axim ally effective operation of the
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language syste m so far acquired by the student Sajavaara believes that fluency equals the m m unicative co acceptabilityof the speech act co m m unicative fit and expectations concerning this fit vary or according to the situationTherefore he present paper adopts the following w orking definition t 1 the ability to produce spoken language with ease 2 the ability to speak with a good but not necessarily perfect co m m and of intonation ocabulary v and gra m m ar 3 the ability to co m m unicate ideas effectively 4 the ability to produce continuous speech without causing co m prehension difficulties or a breakdow n of co m m unicationZhou 2002 By affective factors we m ean those e m otionally relevant characteristics of the individual that influence how hehe will respond to any situation Gardner MacIntyre 1992 Affective factors s identified as m otivation anxiety self estee m and personality play a significant role in foreign etc language learningThis study m ainly focuses on these four factorsIt should be m ade clear that in addition to these four variables other affective factors uch as risks taking and e m pathy ay have an m influence on fluency as wellHowever allthe affective factors were taken into consideration w ould if it m ake the present research im practical and im possible

2 Indices Em ployed to Measure L2 Oral Fluency 2

Researchers adopt different indices to m easure L2 oral fluency accordance with the definition of In oral fluency indices are e m ployed to m easure the fluency of foreign language production in the six present study see Table 1 Table 1Fluency indices and their calculation Category Indices 1m ean length of runsMLR Te m poral 2 average length of pausesALP 1 ratio of errorfree T-nitsREFT u Linguistic 2m ean length of C-nits after u pruningMLCP 1 ratio of reformulation and replacement to total repairsRRR Performing 2 ratio ofinaccurate pronunciation to accurate pronunciationRIP totalinaccurately pronounced w ords total accurately pronounced w ords total nu m ber of w ords after pruning u total C-nits total reform ulations replace m ents total repairs total tim e of pausing total nu m ber of pauses total error free T-nits total Tu units Calculation total syllables pauses total nu m ber of

2 Identification of Pauses 2 1
Pause is the m easure central to te m poral analysis of oral fluency this study pause is defined as In a a 3 either within a sentence or between sentencesZhang 2002 All break of 0 seconds or longer filled and unfilled pauses of 0 seconds and above are m arked and these define the starting and ending 3 points of a speech runThus o te m poral indices e ean length of runs MLR and average tw i m length of pausesALP are e m ployed in this study

2 Identification of Errors -nits and C-nits 2 2 T u u Error Defining an error is difficult and m ost studies on the m easure m ent of fluency do not discussit in detail this study n error is defined as obvious violation perceived by the researcherof In a an as gra m m atical rules or an unacceptably used lexicalite m according to Standard EnglishZhang 2002 For exa m ple mistaken use of the tense is an error nd a misused w ord also constitutes an error a a
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T-nit A T-nit is defined as m ain clause plus all subordinate clauses and nonu u a clausal structures attached to or e m bedded in itGaies 1980 the present study -rdinate clauses were counted as co o In tw o T-nits in accordance with Foster et al u 2000Therefore in the following exa m ple adapted fro m the subjects oral English test there are tw o Tunits The strong m an is good at swim ming so he ran into the sea T 2 units On the basis of this definition he ratio of error free Tt units is calculated as the nu m ber of errorfree Tunits divided by total nu m ber of T-nits u C-nit C- o m m unication unit defined as m m aticalindependent predictions or u A unit i e c is gra answers to questions w hich lack only the repetition of the question ele m ents to satisfy the criterion of independent prediction Mehner 1998 For exa m ple Help adapted fro m the subjects oral English testOn the basis of this definition verage length of pruned C-nits w ords calculated as a u in is total nu m ber of w ords after pruning divided by total nu m ber of C-nits u

2 Identification of Repairs 2 3
r r f Repairs were defined in terms of five performing pheno m ena eform ulation eplace m ents alse starts epetitions r and hesitations Zhang 2002 These provide the basis on w hich the performing indices can be co m paredThere are usually five pheno m enaThe exa m ples listed below were all adapted fro m the subjects oral English test Reform ulation Either phrases or clauses that are repeated with so m e m odification to syntax m orphology w ord orderFor exa m ple the handso me lifeguard saved the life fro m saved the life of or the drowned girl out of the sea Replacements Lexical ite ms that are im m ediately substituted for another For exa m ple the handso me lifeguard save saved the girl False starts Utterances that are abandoned before co m pletion and that m ay or m ay not be followed by a reform ulationFor exa m ple and the thin m an and when the pretty lady woke up Repetitions Words phrases or clauses that are repeated with no m odification w hatsoever to syntax m orphology r w ord order excluding repetition for rhetorical effect uch as very very beautiful o s For exa m ple the story the story happened at the beach Hesitation Initial phone m e or syllable suttered one or m ore tim es before the co m plete w ord is spokenFor exa m ple The thin m an rurushed into the sea

3The Em pirical Research

3 Research Subjects and Instru ments 1
The subjects chosen for the present e m pirical study are 30 non- nglish m ajor sopho m ores at Harbin E Engineering UniversityAm ong the m 4 are m ales and 6 are fe m ales 2 The instru m ents used to gather the data for the study are one questionnaire E- ail interview an m SPSS12 software and an oral English test 0

3 Questionnaire 1 1
In order to investigate the subjects affective factors that might exert significant effects on oral English fluency m odified questionnaire was designed a consisting of so m e personal inform ation the subjects na m es ender ajors g m and their CET Band 4 scoresand 59 state m ents in accordance with Likert scale hich had a sliding answer scale of 1- w 5 ranging fro m strongly disagree to strongly agree with a neutral optionThe subjects were asked to choose the m ost appropriate nu m ber w hich indicated their opinion toward each state m ent see Appendix A The revised Eysenck Eysenck and Barrett s Personality Test was e m ployed to m easure extroversion and introversion see Appendix B 3 E- ail Interview 1 2 m An E- ailinterview was e m ployed in place of the traditional face- m to face interview in order to m ake
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sure that the interviewees w ould be willing to express their personal feelings freely served as supplying It deeper and richer co m ple m entary inform ation to the questionnaire see Appendix C

3 Oral English Test 1 3

The oral English test served to assess the oral English fluency of the subjectsA sequence of eight coherently structured pictures was used in the study for eliciting oral production fro m the subjectsThe adoption of the picture story narration was considered suitable for a nu m ber of reasons was believed It preferable to study m onologue rather than dialogue or m ultilogue Lennon 1990 The students narrations were first recorded and then transcribed

3 Results and Analyses 2 3 Analysis on Motivation and Oral English Fluency 2 1 State m ents 1- 11 see Appendix A are concerned with integrative m otivation w hile State m ents 1217 are related to instru m ental m otivationThe levels of internal consistency reliabilityCronbach 1951 for the first 11 state m ents and the following 6 state m ents are both acceptable for a 5- m Likert scale ite 0 67 and 02 respectivelyThe 30 subjects are generally divided into tw o types according to their 7 different types of m otivation on learning oral English Fro m Table 2 we learn that between the instru m ental subjects and the integrative subjects he data reveal a significant difference in the subjects t fluency indices for MLR ALP REFT MLCP and RRR The subjects w ho learn oral English for integrative reasons generally tend to produce longer speech runswith a m ean of 535 syllables 5 than those w ho choose to learn oral English for instru m ental reasonswith a m ean of 403 syllablesThe 0 integrative subjects spend n average uch less tim e in pausing than the instru m ental subjects 85 o m 0 8 112The tw o m ean scores for REFT are 048 and 060 uggesting that the subjects with different 1 1 2 s m otivation showed m uch difference in their on- processing ability in terms of linguistic accuracyTo line be exact he instru m ental subjects on the w hole m ade m ore t though not significantly m ore errors than those with integrative m otivationThe integrative subjects overall m ean for the pruned Cunits is 970 9 w ords in length hich is higher than the instru m entalsubjects 865 w ordsin lengthThisindicates that w 1 the integrative subjects generally produced longer co m m unication units in their storytelling than those of the instru m ental onesIt is also obvious fro m the data that the differences between the instru m ental subjects RRR The ratio of reform ulation and replace m ent to total repairs and the integrative subjects RRR have reached a significant level 030 53 other w ords he integrative subjects generally 0 5 t 7 In reform ulated and replaced their unsatisfying utterances less often than the instru m ental ones The differences in MLR ALP REFT MLCP and RRR are statistically significant at 05 level 0 See Table 2However n exception can be found with regard to RIP w hich is nona significant statistically 92 0 3 0 0 065 and 0 That is to say 054 the subjects accuracy of 5 with their m eans quite close 0 pronunciation has little to do with their m otivation types
Table 2The descriptive statistics of relation between m otivation and oral fluency t test for Equality of Means Motivation Type N Mean StdDeviation t Instru m ental MLR Integrative Instru m ental ALP Integrative Instru m ental REFT Integrative 14 2 60 0 57 14 16 8 85 1 48 0 86 0 64 2 5 -29 0 35 14 16 535 5 112 1 8 10 1 62 241 5 0 35 16 403 0 120 0 2 5 -05 0 37 Sig2 tailed

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t test for Equality of Means Motivation Type N Mean StdDeviation t Instru m ental MLCP Integrative Instru m ental RRR Integrative Instru m ental RIP Integrative
P 5 0 0

Sig2 tailed 0 22

16 14 16 14 16 14

865 1 970 9 7 30 5 53 0 54 0 65

8 42 2 8 -21 141 4 1 06 267 6 0 97 0 21 -905 0 19 3 92 0 29

3 Analysis on Anxiety and Oral English Fluency 2 2

State m ents 18- 47 see Appendix A involve anxietyThe levels of internal consistency reliability for these 30 state m ents are acceptable for a 5- m Likert scale 3According ite Cronbach 1951 0 7 to the answers hose w hose anxiety scores were between 2 to 3 belonged to the group of average t 5 5 anxiety level since their scores were very close to the m ean m arksAnother group he group of low 3 t anxiety level was m ade up of those w hose anxiety scores were below 2The third group was co m posed 5 of those w ho scored above 3 5 and this group was the high anxiety group this study co m parison In a was m ade between the High Anxiety Group consisting of 14 subjectsand the Low Anxiety Group consisting of 9 subjectsThe correlation between the anxiety and the subjects oral fluency can be seen fro m Table 3 Table 3The descriptive statistics of relation between anxiety and oral fluency t test for Equality of Means Anxiety Level N Mean StdDeviation t High Anxiety MLR Low Anxiety High Anxiety ALP Low Anxiety High Anxiety REFT Low Anxiety High Anxiety MLCP Low Anxiety High Anxiety RRR Low Anxiety High Anxiety RIP Low Anxiety
P 5 0 0

Sig2 tailed

14 9 14 9 14 9 14 9 14 9 14 9

393 4 587 6 197 1 8 70 1 13 2 70 780 7 1053 1 0 53 0 66 0 54 0 65

9 20 3 6 -27 5 01 1 55 381 0 0 98 0 66 3 1 -69 0 55 107 7 2 3 -61 3 42 1 15 273 7 1 02 0 23 -175 0 13 8 69 0 50 0 28 0 34 0 37 0 22

Fro m the overall perspective Table 3 indicated that the subjects had the tendency to produce m ore fluent and accurate speech with the decrease of their anxiety levelThe less anxious subjects m ade longer
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speech runs 87 93 l ess pauses 70 97 m ore error5 6 3 4 0 8 1 1 free T-nits 70 13 u 0 2 0 1 longer pruned C-nits u 10 153 7 and larger ratio of reform ation and replace m ent 0 780 066 0 053Again here is no significant difference between the high and low groups in terms of RIPThe t above m entioned results were strengthened by the statistical significance in Table 3 P The 0 05 m eans and significant degrees indicated that he less anxious a subject is he m ore fluent and accurate t t his speech production m ay be

3 Analysis on Self esteem and Oral English Fluency 2 3 Table 4The descriptive statistics of relation between self estee m and oral fluency t test for Equality of Means Self estee m Level N Mean StdDeviation t Low Selfestee m MLR High Self estee m Low Selfestee m ALP High Self estee m Low Selfestee m REFT High Self estee m Low Selfestee m MLCP High Self estee m Low Selfestee m RRR High Self estee m Low Selfestee m RIP High Self estee m P 5 0 0

Sig2 tailed

17 13 17 13 17 13 17 13 17 13 17 13

480 1 533 6 181 0 8 80 1 61 2 67 877 4 943 8 5 53 7 04 0 58 0 57

165 0 2 0 -59 8 86 1 69 190 8 0 95 0 68 2 2 -50 0 65 130 6 1 5 -14 181 1 0 17 142 8 0 30 0 23 -046 0 13 9 65 0 43 0 48 0 49 0 45 0 44

In the questionnaire he subjects were asked to m ake a self evaluation on their ow n foreign language t proficiency see Appendix A State m ents 48- evaluate their self estee m conditions The levels of 52 internal consistency reliabilityCronbach 1951 for this part are acceptable 2 0 8 By low self estee m m ean those w hose anxiety scores were below the average level 3Those w ho we scored above 3 were considered the highestee m ed ones The results in Table 4 clearly im ply so m e differences between students with low and high self estee m by respective m ean scores and significance of these 5 fluency indicesThe m ore confident subjects m ade longer speech runs 33 80 44 5 6 4 1 P 0 0 0 0 0 8 1 0 P 0 0 0 0 units 67 61 0 2 0 1 P 5 l ess pauses 80 81 45 5 m ore error free T0 049 5 longer pruned C-nits 43 77 48 5 0 0 u 9 8 8 4 P 0 0 0 0 and larger ratio of reform ation and replace m ent 04 53 43 5 That is he higher self estee m a learner has he 0 7 0 5 P 0 0 0 0 t t better oral English proficiency the learner de m onstrates

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3 Data Analysis on Personality and Oral English Fluency 2 4

Table 5The descriptive statistics of relation between personality and oral fluency t test for Equality of Means Personality Type N Mean StdDeviation t Introverted MLR Extroverted Introverted ALP Extroverted Introverted REFT Extroverted Introverted MLCP Extroverted Introverted RRR Extroverted Introverted RIP Extroverted
P 5 0 0

Sig2 tailed 6 84

16 12 16 12 16 12 16 12 16 12 16 12

460 4 478 8 138 0 9 98 2 05 1 85 950 2 868 6 6 25 6 90 0 54 0 58

105 5 -428 144 2 2 29 2 27 1 76 1 19 -295 0 64 175 7 -515 104 4 1 68 6 00 1 36 0 18 2 57 0 28 8 06 5 71 6 25 7 78 7 91

The 12- m Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire EPQR- Eysenck ite S Eysenck Barren 1985 was e m ployed to m easure extroversion introversion This EPQRShas now been used quite widely It is reported that the reliabilities for m ales and fe m ales are 08 and 04 respectively for extraversion 8 8 is Francis et al 2006 The level of internal consistency reliability Cronbach 1951 higher than the above- entioned ones p to 04 m u 9 probably because tw o subjectsSubject 3 and 6were taken out of consideration in Table 5 since their responses to the questionnaire were not consistent with their ow n ideas about their personality in the E- ail interview The results in Table 5 generally do not indicate any m significant difference between extroverted and introverted subjects be concrete he m ean data of the To t introverted and the extroverted subjects oral English fluency indices were very close to each other and there was no statistical significance in all the six indicesThat m ay im ply that personality factor bears little reference to oral English fluency in EFL classroo m in the Chinese contextThis result is so m ew hat inconsistent with Krashen s belief that an outgoing personality m ay contribute to foreign language learning 1982The failure to indicate significant correlation between personality and oral fluency in this study might be due to the following reasons the personality questionnaire is designed on a 2- m scale by ite m erely requiring the subjects to give orno yes response instead of a m ulti ite m sliding scale hich w m ay lead to the inaccuracy of personality m easure m entDue to the laborious operation and co m plexity in m easure m ent of affective factors he co m paratively sm all group of subjects and their uneven distribution t 12 are also possible factors hich evertheless re difficult w n a for extroversion and 16 for introversion to be excluded in the results

4Conclusion
The paper has m ade an atte m pt to explore the relationships between 4 affective factors College English students oral English fluency The results m anifest that integrative m otivation plays a m ore im portant role than the instru m ental m otivation Co m pared with the students with instru m ental m otivation he students with integrative m otivation generally speak English m ore fluently Anxiety is t rather negatively correlated with the oral English achieve m entThe less anxious a learner is he better t
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oral English co m petence the learner showsSelf estee m is positively correlated with the oral English achieve m ent m eans that the higher self estee m a learner has he m ore fluent oral English the learner It t producesThere is a rather weak or no correlation between personality and oral English proficiency w hich is w orth investigating in further researches This study islimited in the way that these 4 affective factors were studied separately effect hey In t often w ork together to affect oral production awaits further research in terms of the interrelationship It a m ong affective factors uch as between anxiety and self estee m or the reason that there m ay be so m e s f correlation existingIn addition m ore researches should be conducted concerning the relationship between the untouched affective factors and oral fluency uch as risks taking and e m pathy hich m ay w exert so m e indirect effect on oral perform ance as well Itis hoped s well hatthe current research m ay a t prove insightful for other researchers in the area of affective factors

References
Arnold J 2000 Affectin Language LearningBeijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Bru mfit 1984 Com municative Methodology in Language Teaching The Roles of Fluency and Accuracy C Cam bridge Cam bridge University Press Cheng P 2004 Correlations between classroo m anxiety and college students Oral Performance Y Teaching English in China 275 9- 9 105 Cronbach L J 1951Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of testsPsychometrika 16 97- 2 334 Dornyei 2003 Attitudes Z orientations and m otivations in language learning Advances in theory research nd applicationsLanguage Learning 53 - a 1 3 32 Eysenck S B G 1985A revised version of the psychoticism scale Personality and Individual Differences 6 21- 29 Foster al P et 2000 Measuring spoken language unit for all reasons Applied Linguistics 21 54- A 3 375 Francis al L J et 2006The short form revised eysenck personality questionnaireEPQR- A German S edition Social Behavior and Personality http findarticles m co p articles mi qa3852 is 200601 ai n17170166g 008 p 4 2 5 6 Gaies J1980 T-nit analysis in second language research Applications S u proble ms and limitations TESOL Quarterly 1 3- 5 60 Gardner C P MacIntyre R 1992Astudent s contributionsto second language acquisition Cognitive D variablesLanguage Learning 25 11- 2 220 Kitano K 2001Anxiety in the college Japanese language classroo m Modern Language Journal 85 49- 5 566 Krashen S 1982Principles and Practicesin Second Language AcquisitionOxford Pergam on Press Ltd Lennon P 1990 Investigating fluency in EFL quantitative approach Language Learning 40 87- A 3 417 Mehnert U 1998The effects of different lengths of time for planning on second language performance Studiesin Second Language Acquisition 20 3- 8 108 Sajavaara K 1987 Second language speech production Factors affecting fluencyPsycholinguistic Models of ProductionNew Jersey Albex Sch midt R 1992 Psychological mechanisms underlying second language fluencyStudiesin Second Language Acquisition 3 57- 3 385 Xiang Y M 2004On affective barriers to language learning Teaching English in China 271 15- 1 119 2004 5 2 003 3 2 007 2 2002 2002 4 3 2 5

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Appendix A Questionnaire
The following questionnaire is designed for the purpose of acade mic research iming to investigate a the effects of the students affective factors on oral English outputFor each of the following questions there is no right or wronganswers nd your answers will be strictly kept secretYour answers will exert a direct influence on the result of the research please see to it that you have read each state m ent so carefully before choosing the m ost appropriate nu m ber w hich m ay exactly indicate your opinionThanks for your support and cooperation Na m e Sex 1strongly disagree 2disagree 3neutral 4agree 5strongly agree Major CET Band 4 Score

Group 1 Motivation 1 Ireally enjoy speaking English 2 Ithink speaking in English sounds good 3 Ipractice spoken English only for fun 4 m very interested in spoken English Ia 5 Ilearn spoken English in order that Icould co m m unicate with foreigners m ore effectively 6 Ithink speaking English well could enable m e to participate in the activities of other cultures m ore freely 7 Ilike dealing with the people w ho speak English 8 Itake great interest in participating in the activities of English Corner or English Club 9 I have an opportunity of being taught by a foreign teacher will talk with him in English as If I possible as Ican 10 Iget a chance to speak English off ca m pus or Ico m e across an English native speaker in the street If I will take the opportunity to practice m y oral English 11 Ifind it really interesting to speak English and I hope Ican speak several foreign languages no m atter they are required courses or not 12 want to learn spoken English well or it will be helpful for m y future job I f 13 Ipractice oral English in order that Ican pass CET-ET S 14 want to learn oral English wellin order that Ican go abroad I 15 will keep im proving m y oral English fro m now on if m y oral English proficiency affects m y w ork I perform ance or salary 16 every student is required to take part in CET-ET will m ake effort to im prove m y oral English If S I 17 I have passed CET Band 4 or 6 will spend m uch less tim e in learning English et alone in If I l learning oral English Group 2 Anxiety 18 Idon t feel nervous w hen speaking English in class 19 English class always sitin the back or avoid eye contact with the teacher for fear of being asked In I to answer questions 20 Inever dare to answer questions in English class 21 m asha m ed to raise m y hand in English class even if I ve got an answer Ia 22 Ifeel very e m barrassed if I m ake mistakes w hen speaking English in front of the w hole class 23 Ihope to be asked to answer questions in English class 24 English class will take the initiative in answering the teacher s questions as possible as Ican In I 25 When Ia m asked to answer questions in English class y heart will beat faster m 26 English class feel so nervous that I m ay forget w hat I ve got to know In I 27 English class will feel frightened w hen Icannot understand the teacher s lectures In I 28 English class hen Ianticipate that Ia m going to be asked to answer questions will tre m ble In w I
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29 When m y English teacher asks m e an unanticipated question will beco m e nervous I 30 m always afraid of m aking mistakes w hen speaking English in class Ia 31 When answering questions a m afraid of being interrupted or corrected by the teacher I 32 When Irealize Ihave m ade a mistake will beco m e m ore nervous I 33 Ican t rest assured even if Ihave m ade full preparations for m y English class 34 Idon t feel confident at all w hen speaking English in class 35 Ihave a habit of repeating an English sentence for several tim es before saying it 36 m afraid of being looked dow n upon w hen Ifind other students can speak English better than Ido Ia 37 m asha m ed to speak English because Ithink m y pronunciation and intonation are not so good Ia 38 English class feel confident that Ican speak English well In I 39 Idon t feel the pressure fro m m aking full preparations for English class 40 Ialways feel co mfortable and delightful before English class gets started 41 m always nervous w hen m y English teacher asks m e to answer questionsin front of the w hole class Ia 42 Ialways care about other persons opinions on m e 43When co m m unicating in English he other party s facial expressions or body reactions will have great t influence on m e 44 want to speak English Ia m afraid that other students willlaugh at m e o Ijust passively wait I but s for being asked to answer questions 45 Ithink I m ay not feel nervous or unco mfortable w hen talking with a foreigner even if Icannot speak English well enough 46 When Ihave difficulty in expressing m yself in English feel very unco mfortable I 47 want to answer questions in English I but because of nervousness can only answer questions I together with others Group 3 Self estee m 48 Ifeel confident about speaking English in class 49 Ithink m y spoken English is good 50 Ihave confidence in m y language talent 51The re m arks fro m teachers or other students will have influence on m y confidence in oral English proficiency 52 Ialways think that other students speak English better than Ido

Appendix B The Eysenck Eysenck and Barrett s Personality Test

The following is a personality test to determine w hether you are an extrovert or introvert person Please putY for Yes andN for No in front of each state m ent 1Are you a talkative person 2Are you rather lively 3Do you enjoy m eeting new people 4Can you usually let yourself go and enjoy yourself at a lively party 5Do you usually take the initiative in m aking new friend 6Do you easily get so m e life into a rather dull party 7Do you tend to keep in the background on social occasions 8Do you like mixing with people 9Do you like plenty of bustle and excite m ent 10Are you m ostly quiet w hen you are with other person 11Do other people think of you as being very lively 12Can you get a party going S B Eysenck G 1985 A revised version of the psychoticism scale Personality and Individual Differences 6 9 2 106 Continued on p

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