Abstract
Learning a foreign language is stressful. If learners are anxious, they might be less confident and less willing to communicate (MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clément, & Noels, 1998). Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) are widely used in the field of personal health, career pursuit among others. I introduce mental contrasting techniques to Chinese teaching and learning to see if MCII help learners lower their anxiety level. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale is implemented to test participants’ self-perceived anxiety. Participants’ cortisol in saliva serve as a manifestation of participants’ anxiety (i.e., stress) levels and as a measure of the changes of their anxiety levels. The results show that MCII can effectively lower participants’ speaking anxiety. Qualitative data also show that participants consider MCII helpful with Chinese learning and lowering anxiety levels.
Degree
MA
College and Department
Humanities; Center for Language Studies
Rights
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Chien, Tzu-Hsiang, "Mental Contrasting as a Technique to Lower Learners' Levels of Anxiety when Completing Communicative Tasks in a Chinese Beginning Classroom" (2020). Theses and Dissertations. 8454.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/8454
Date Submitted
2020-06-04
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd11206
Keywords
MCII, speaking anxiety, CFL, beginning learners
Language
english