Language Anxiety: Experiences of Chinese Graduate Students at U.S. Higher Institutions

It is very common for Chinese graduate students to experience language anxiety in the U.S. higher institutions, yet the literature on this topic is limited. This research study focused on the influence of the length of stay in U.S. higher institutions, various programs, gender, and acculturation process on Chinese graduate students' language anxiety levels from 156 students in a public university in the United States. Mixed methods were applied and the results showed that students who stayed longer and were in art-related majors had the lowest anxiety. What also revealed from this study was that gender and acculturation did play some roles on language anxiety levels. The findings of this research enriched the list of variables correlated with language anxiety. The educational implications of these findings were also discussed.