Abstract

Writing apprehension is one of the primary issues that impede students’ willingness to compose classical Chinese poetry. It refers to the negative and anxious feelings that undermine their self-confidence in fulfilling writing goals. This paper aims to measure the levels of writing apprehension of Chinese undergraduate students in the composition of classical Chinese poetry and explore whether majors, preferences of situated and sensory learning styles contribute to any significant differences in their writing apprehension levels. The potential factors that mainly influence their attitudes are also investigated. The respondents include 100 undergraduate students at the Guilin University of Electronic Technology in China. The quantitative findings firstly indicated that the students had a medium level of writing apprehension, and those who majored in Chinese were more anxious than those who majored in English. Secondly, students who preferred the tactile learning style had the lowest level of writing apprehension. However, there were no significant differences in their writing apprehension levels regarding majors and preferences of learning styles. Moreover, the qualitative findings suggested that the six factors that mainly led to the writing apprehension were: the choice of words and sentences, the expression of thoughts and emotions, the establishment of themes and subject matter, the selection of poetic templates, the creation of imagery and aesthetic conception and the use of artistic techniques. The results highlight the awareness and necessity of poetry writing instruction. It is recommended that similar research should be done on a larger scale in China.