The Relationship between Writing Anxiety and Writing Strategies among Chinese College Students

As an output skill, English writing is an important indication of the learners’ comprehensive language competence. However, a substantial portion of Chinese college students are not proficient in English writing. This study tried to investigate the overall situations of Chinese college students’ writing anxiety and writing strategies and explore the relationship between them. This quantitative descriptive study used two questionnaires as the instrument. A total of 385 freshmen and sophomores from Chuzhou University in central China were involved in the survey. This study found that participants experienced a medium level of writing anxiety with avoidance behavior anxiety as the main type. The study also found that participants frequently used writing strategies and the most used ones were affective and cognitive strategy. In addition, a significant correlation was observed between writing anxiety and writing strategy use. The findings of this study provide enlightenment for improving English writing instruction in Chinese context.