ABSTRACT
Scovel (1978) argued that anxiety can be classified into facilitating anxiety and debilitating anxiety in terms of their characteristics. The former one can motivate language learners and help them establish confidence and accept new tasks. The latter one will lead students to escape their tasks and cause a feeling of wanting to escape anxiety. Williams (1991) has similar viewpoints. He pointed out that the classification of anxiety is affected by the degree of anxiety. He holds that a great anxiety may hinder students’ progress. Afterwards, many studies were done on the relationship between anxiety and language learning and they had reached an agreement. Cardener, 1985, Young, 1992, Steinberg & Horwitz, 1986 found that anxieties in English learning had a negative influence on students’ learning. The more anxiety a student has, the lower score he gets.
