Using a Photo-Assisted Approach to Reduce Anxiety and Enhance English Sentence-Making Ability of Junior High School Students

• Main Authors: Yu-Chi Chu, 朱玉琪
• Other Authors: 廖恩崇
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/zd87e7

碩士 === 中原大學 === 應用外國語文研究所 === 106 === Most junior high school students in Taiwan fail their English exams because they are unable to use the words they have been taught in class to make sentences. Studies on writing anxiety caused from sentence making have concluded that sentence making is the most stressful task for junior high school students, especially when they have insufficient knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to make sentences. In terms of the theories of situated learning and the argument about vocabulary learning (see Chapter 2), this study explores differences between sentence making with pictures or photos to determine if photos can help junior high school students increase their proficiency in sentence making and reduce their anxiety while they are writing. The subjects for this study were 50 eighth grade students from a public junior high school in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. These 50 students were assigned to control and experimental groups that were further divided into two achievement levels in each group depending on their previous test scores in school. The independent variables for the study were the photo elicitation and proficiency level, and the dependent variables were writing anxiety and sentence making skills. The instruments were the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), test sheets and interviews. The treatment was teaching with sentence making sheets with photos. Finally, quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed and interpreted to answer the proposed research questions. The study expects that photo-elicit writing will reduce students’ anxiety and their sentence-making ability. Also, the results of this study should provide suggestions to teachers and administrations to understand the factors of anxiety when students make sentences. Use of reality photos to make more meaningful sentences should also facilitate the teaching process. Actually, photo-assisted approach reduced cognitive anxiety in the control and experimental group. It also imporved the sentence-making ability of the high and low achievement students, furthermore, it significantly increased word error correction of the high achievement students. These results were highlighted in this study.