【正文】 As we know, listening, reading, writing, speaking and translating are the five basic skills in language teaching and learning. Listening, one of the means of language munication is used most widely in our daily life. About three quarters of an adult’s time concerns listening. Listening plays the first and the most important role in learning a foreign language. In China, however, teaching listening has been neglected for a long time. What most teachers do in class is merely to play the recorder and check the answers. Some try to help students to understand the content by constant stopping and repeating and explaining word by word. However, English listening is a more plex activity in which the listener is expected to have the ability to follow the general trend of what is said, to understand special details, and to infer the speaker’s intention. The author has done an oral survey in a country middle school in March 2007. About % of the English language learning students think that the most bothering and most difficult course is listening prehension, and even some of them have difficulties in understanding their teacher who gives lessons in English. Of course, it is difficult for a middle school student to understand the listening material if he has not enough vocabulary and the ability of telling the grammar construction. In the author’s survey, about 35% of the students with low listening prehension think this is because they do not understand the knowledge about linguistics and they are not able to tell the meanings of what they have heard. In another investigation in a middle school in Meizhou in March 2005, students were asked to listen to a dialogue of 244 words, in which the words and the related grammar have already been learned, but 80% of them thought it was too difficult. Then, using the same dialogue as a reading prehension material, the author found that only 5% of them thought it was a little difficult. On the other hand the response ability is also another reason. It is clear that the reading speed of a material also affects. About 43% of the students thought that the material was read too fast and they just could not follow. A lot of students have their own listening habits. Some students often try to understand each word or each sentence. They are afraid of missing any words. They will think hard when they meet some difficult words or sentences. And the words they failed to catch will lead to their failure to catch another sentence so that they miss more words. They often translate the English into Chinese in their mind, which hinders their listening speed. All of above factors will affect them to misunderstand the reading material, which also will cause them to feel anxious. Anxiety is one of important emotional factors affecting Middleschool students’ English listening learning.2. Anxiety Anxiety is often regarded as kind of aberrant emotions, which is also termed as mental abnormality (Wang amp。一方面，學(xué)生必須扎實地掌握語言知識體系，包括對語音、語法、詞匯等的掌握，養(yǎng)成良好的聽力習(xí)慣，邊聽邊做筆記等。他們認(rèn)為聽力材料難懂，語流太快以至經(jīng)常有聽力焦慮感。大多數(shù)中國學(xué)生普遍認(rèn)為聽力理解是各種考試中最難的部分。作者從兩方面提出一些減輕焦慮及改進(jìn)聽力理解的有效途徑。關(guān)鍵詞：焦慮 聽力理解 策略Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………….……..….………...iAbstract(English)………………………………………………..……….….………...iiAbstract(Chinese)……………………………………………………..….…….……..iiiContents……………………………………………………………..………….……..iv1. Introduction….……………………………………………………..……………….12. Anxiety………………………..….…………………………………………………2 . Language anxiety ………….………… .………………………………………….………..3 . The symptoms of anxiety ...…… ……………………………………………...43. Factors affecting students’ anxiety while listening …………..…………………….4 . Selfconfidence………………..……………………………………….………5 . Motivation ……………………...………………………….……………….….5 . The speed of speaking………………..………….…………….………….…....6 . Lack of the basic knowledge of English ………………..…………….….……6. Lack of phonetic knowledge………………..……..……………….…….7. Vocabulary………………………………….…………………………..8. Grammar……………………………………….……………………….9. Cultural background knowledge……….………….………………..…..9. Lack of listening skills……………………….…………………...…………..104. Strategies in reducing high anxiety………………...………………………..…….11. Teachers’ strategies in reducing students’ high anxiety………...……..……..11. To protect students’ selfesteem and educate their confidence ..………....11. To cultivate students’ interest in listening………………………………..12 . Strategies of students in improving listening………………..…….………..…14. To improve linguistic knowledge……………………………….….……14. To practice for the tempo of speaking………………..…..…..………….15. To enlarge vocabulary……………………………………….…..……….16. Strengthen grammar……………………………………………….….…16. Enrich background knowledge………………………….…………….…16. Master useful listening skills …………………………………………....175. Conclusion…………………………………………………….…………………..18References………………………………………………………………...……….....20Strategies in Reducing High Anxiety of Middleschool Students on English Listening Learning20 1. Introduction they repeat careless mistakes and choose wrong answers even though they knew the correct ones on tests. They bee nervous in roleplaying. And they produce less interpretive messages and pronounce English less fluently. They also tend to show physiological symptoms such as feeling tense, palpitations, sweating, trembling, and/or even sleepiness. 2)Anxious experiences learners have had the follow behavioral responses. The students who have language anxiety often skip classes, e to class late and without preparation, and postpone their homework. They also try to avoid studying and spontaneous speech, and pretend to be indifferent, or, conversely, study too much.3. Factors affecting milldeschool students’ anxiety while listening Listener’s listening ability is influenced by psychological factors. Sometimes, listeners’ overconcentration on listening material leads to nervousness. “Anxiety has a negative effect on listening prehension.” (Bai Yaorong, 2003: