Language Anxiety in ESL classroom: Analysis of Turn-taking patterns in ESL Classroom Discourse

In this paper, the author focuses on the relationship between turn-taking patterns and foreign language anxiety in Chinese adult immigrants' ESL classroom discourses. Firstly, a series of articles concerning foreign language anxiety in ESL context are reviewed and ideas about turn-taking patterns' influences on second language learning are discussed. Secondly, a specific study is carried out to examine the actual influence of turn-taking patterns on the Chinese adult immigrant learners' foreign language anxiety. The author collected the data including classroom recordings and follow-up interviews from an ESL classroom at Chinatown in Philadelphia. The data of turn-taking patterns' influence on Chinese immigrants' language anxiety is discussed and analyzed in details. Finally, a brief conclusion and implication are drawn from the study.