Abstract:

According to a 2012 survey conducted by the Japan Foundation, the total number of Japanese language learners in China, from elementary schools to universities, exceeds one million, the largest number of Japanese language learners in the world. Among these, students who belong to higher education institutions such as universities account for more than 60% of all the learners. As the number of Japanese learners at higher education institutions in China increased by 28.3% from 2009 to 2012, native Japanese teachers at universities were expected to play a more important role. Native Japanese teachers in China are often asked to teach conversation classes, but many Chinese students seem to feel uncomfortable speaking Japanese. As previous studies have examined, second language anxiety involves much more complicated and diversified factors than the anxiety involved in learning one’s first language and other subjects. This paper focuses on speaking anxiety among second language learners and aims to define the factors which cause anxiety when learners make utterances. In this paper, the anxiety that learners feel when they speak a second language is defined as an “unwillingness to speak.” As a result of an analysis of semi-structured interviews of 20 Chinese university students who are studying Japanese, two factors that influence learners’ unwillingness to speak Japanese are identified in addition to other factors that previous studies have pointed out. One is defined as the “interlocutor factor.” Interlocutor means anyone whom they speak Japanese with, including teachers and other students, either Japanese or non-Japanese. The result shows that speaking anxiety is caused not only by students’ personalities or lack of confidence, but also by interlocutors’ personalities and degree of intimacy. The second factor is “inexperience.” New or unfamiliar situations seem to cause more anxiety than when they are in familiar situations. New or unfamiliar situations include, in these Chinese students’ case, meeting Japanese nationals or speaking Japanese with others on a daily basis. These results suggest that providing more opportunities for students to speak Japanese with a variety of people would help in reducing their unwillingness to speak Japanese.