Anxiety in the Process of Writing M.A.Theses in English Majors

摘要

In terms of second language acquisition or learning,research on anxiety has primarily focused on foreign language classroom anxiety or test anxiety,with little attention paid to anxiety in the process of writing academic theses.This study aims to explore to what extent anxiety affects the whole process of three English majors writing their M.A.theses,as well as testing the relationships between anxiety and self-regulation in the whole process.The findings indicate that anxiety appears with high degree at the preparation stage,slumps at the writing stage and reaches another high level at the revision stage.Anxiety also exists when negotiating with supervisors.What’s more,self-regulation has been proved to alleviate anxiety in the process of writing.This study contributes new knowledge to the field by relating anxiety to self-regulation in the process of writing M.A.theses,yielding a deepened understanding of self-regulation that reduces anxiety in terms of the progress gradually achieved in the writing process.It also has implications for supervisors to pay attention to the way of negotiating with students that may cause anxiety during the academic theses writing process.