Chapter two   Literature Review

Gallup’ survey in 2001 showed that the fear of public speaking is the American’s second largest fear, only behind the fear of snacks (Gallup 2001)。 Students will have Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) even from the moment that arranged a speech job。 Diana (2010) pointed out that speech anxiety is a situation-specific anxiety appearing in a particular context。 It is also a series of uncomfortable feelings and behaviors which caused by expected experiences in real or imagined public speech activities。 A survey shows that there are 80 percent of respondent not having good enough mental state, which means they have slight or a greater degree of anxiety。 

Public Speaking Anxiety is considered as a social anxiety。 It is caused by the fear and the embarrassment or the humiliation when speaking in front of the public (American Psychiatric Association 2000)。The researchers, Stein and Forde believed that public speaking anxiety is the most common social anxiety。 Su Xunwu (1997) explored the necessity of training course in the English professional lecture course。 Peng Qinglong  (2000) proposed that we can improve speculation and innovation capacities through the lectures and debates in oral language class。 Wang Tong (2001) study the feasibility of new courses--the public speaking course based on oral English teaching。 Researches on anxiety and English speech anxiety are very rate。 Jin Shuangjun’s research (2009) shows that speakers’ self-concept, inpidual personality, fully prepared, environment, knowledge and experiences of speech will have effects on the results of one’s speech。 Research on the efficacy of PSA of Yang Li (2009) shows that cognitive behavioral group therapy can effectively reduce the inpidual social anxiety by penetrating the speech skills training。 We should promote students’ abilities and skills by English teaching。 It is very important in English speech teaching to look for the causes of English speech anxiety and reduce this anxiety through training。 

Chapter Three  Research Design

3。1 Subjects of the Study

The subjects of the study are 600 students from University。 These students are in different majors of different grades。 These 600 students are from six different majors and each of major has 100 students。 Every 100 students of each major are from four different grades。 The author chooses different students of different majors in different grades, which will make the results of the survey more persuasive。

University is located in Xuzhou, Province。 It is one of the nine colleges and universities in ‘ National Training Plan’ by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance。 It is also one of the universities in " Excellent Teacher Training Program "。 University is not only the key university built by Province and Xuzhou City, but also the co-constructing universities of the Ministry of Education and Provincial People's Government 。