Abstract：Abstract: To date, the negative academic emotions, other than anxiety, of foreign language learners have received scant attention in the research literature. And far too little attention has been paid to the relation between foreign language classroom environment and negative academic emotions. With the Control-Value Theory of Academic Emotions as the theoretical framework, this study aims at exploring the paths and mechanism by which the factors of classroom environment influence the negative academic emotions of English majors. The research findings show that all these theoretically-grounded factors of classroom environment influence negative academic emotions with different paths and varied levels of intensity. Teacher’s expectation, students’ autonomy, students’ competition, teacher-student relationship and cognitive quality of teaching materials can indirectly influence negative high arousal emotions (NHE). Meanwhile, students’ autonomy, cognitive quality of teaching materials and students’ competition directly influence NHE. With regard to negative low arousal emotions (NLE), Teacher’s expectation, students’ autonomy, students’ competition and teacher-student relationship and cognitive quality of teaching materials have indirect influence on NLE, while teacher’s arrangement, teacher’s feedback and students’ autonomy directly influence NLE of English majors. This research could help raise the awareness of foreign language teachers to modulate learners’ negative emotions in classroom environment.
Key words: academic emotions; negative high arousal emotions; negative low arousal emotions; classroom environment
