scholarly journals An Exploration of Anxiety towards English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Author(s):  
Pratika Ayuningtyas

This study aims at exploring the Foreign Language Anxiety among the ESP Students. The participants in this study were183 students of three different departments of Politeknik Sawunggalih Aji, Indonesia. There were 56 students of Information Technology Department, 93 students of Accounting Department and 34 students of Business Administration Department. The Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Howitz & Cope, 1986) was used to collect the data. The general level of anxiety among students of Politeknik Sawunggalih Aji, Indonesia is average to high as their mean score is 81.84. There are 169 students who suffered from average to high anxiety or 92.34%.  The results of the analysis revealed that the students of Information Technology department experienced the highest level of anxiety with the mean score of 84.8; the students of Accounting department experienced the next higher level of anxiety with the mean score of 80,8 and the students of Business Administration department experienced the lowest of anxiety with the mean score of 79,8%. Knowing these results, teachers should provide the materials and the teaching method which can help students overcoming their anxiety towards English. Therefore the level of anxiety can be pressed to low.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyemin Kim ◽  
◽  
Elaine Vernadine A. Liongson ◽  

Abstract: Although a number of studies have been done about Foreign Language Anxiety among Korean students, limited studies have been done on foreign language anxiety toward Korean college students in the Philippines. This paper seeks to find out the factors that may affect foreign language anxiety of both male and female college students in learning English, their foreign language learning anxiety in terms of gender, and the factor that may decrease the anxiety of the participants. Data was gathered through the use of a Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), a Likert scale adopted from Yassin (2015) and was analyzed by getting the mean, while the findings were interpreted using the mean scale proposed by Mamhot, Martin & Masangya (2013). Surprisingly, the result revealed that foreign language anxiety is not significant among Korean students. Moreover, the female participants showed higher confidence in speaking and using the language compared to male participants in some aspects. Keywords: EFL; FLCAS, foreign language anxiety; gender


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Maria Nilsson

Although foreign language anxiety is a widely studied construct assumed to develop from negative experiences of language instruction, few researchers have focused on young learners in this regard. This multiple case study investigates levels and triggers of language anxiety in Swedish primary classrooms under rather favorable learning conditions with a supportive, non-competitive atmosphere, and without formal knowledge requirements or grades. A total of 225 learners, aged 8–12, studying English as their first foreign language completed a self-report questionnaire, a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), eliciting learners’ reactions to oral classroom participation. Foreign language anxiety was found along a continuum among learners. To investigate similarities and differences among students of differing anxiety levels, they were grouped into three categories: low, medium and high anxiety. The high anxiety group included 18.2% of learners, and for most of them, this anxiety was situation-specific and closely related to their own oral performance during English lessons. However, many classroom situations triggered language anxiety in other learners as well. It may therefore be advisable for teachers to reflect on common classroom practices that induce anxiety, rather than viewing language anxiety as a disadvantageous characteristic of individual learners. The results call for in-depth studies of classroom contexts where language anxiety develops. Moreover, the study’s contribution encompass new perspectives on research methodology with respect to young learners and in relation to foreign language anxiety.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Amr Abdullatif Yassin ◽  
Norizan Abdul Razak

This study aimed at investigating the level of foreign language anxiety experienced by Yemeni University EFL students. Although many scales have been developed to measure the level of anxiety, each scale investigates anxiety in one skill except Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) which investigates anxiety mainly in speaking and listening. The current study developed a new scale called Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLAS) which fused the three scales with modifications in order to investigate the level of anxiety in the four skills. This scale scored .807 in Cronbach’s Alpha Validity test. The participants are 155 Yemeni University students and the results of the analysis revealed that 13% of the students experienced high level of anxiety, 69% experienced moderate level of anxiety, and 18% experienced low level of anxiety. The general level of anxiety among Yemeni university EFL students is moderate as they score 138 out of 240.


2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 589-601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yung-Nan Chiang

Although anxiety has been documented as an important variable in both interpretation performance and second language acquisition, there has been virtually no research on the interconnections between the anxiety reactions induced by these two cross-linguistic / cultural endeavors. A review of the literature on anxiety and interpretation performance finds that most of the existing studies have treated the anxiety induced by interpretation as a transfer of other general types of anxieties, such as trait anxiety, without considering the probable role of second language anxiety in interpretation performance. In order to determine the role of foreign language anxiety in 213 Chinese-English interpretation students’ learning outcomes, which were indexed by the participants’ mid-term exam scores and semester grades, this study employed Spielberger’s (1983)Trait Anxiety Inventoryto measure the students’ trait anxiety, while utilizing Horwitz, Horwitzet al.’s (1986)Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) to measure the participants’ foreign language anxiety. Results of correlation analyses showed that a) trait anxiety was not related to either mid-term exam scores or semester grades, b) foreign language anxiety was significantly and negatively associated with both outcome measures, c) after controlling for the effect of trait anxiety, the relationship between foreign language anxiety and interpretation learning outcomes remained significant, and d) a vast majority of theFLCASitems had significant and negative associations with both outcome measures. Implications for developing a theory of and a measurement instrument for interpretation learning anxiety are suggested.


Author(s):  
Rosnah Mohd. Sham ◽  
Mohd Nazri Latiff Azmi

This paper is part of a study which addresses the reliability of Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) in Malay version.  Researchers find that the reliability of an instrument is closely associated with its validity and an instrument cannot be valid unless it is reliable. However, the reliability of an instrument does not depend on its validity. Therefore, this paper investigates the reliability of the instrument called FLCAS in Malay version.  FLCAS is widely used in collecting data relating to language anxiety and perhaps the most reliable and comprehensive tool in language anxiety.  This paper objectively measures the reliability of FLCAS by using Cronbach’s Alpha, the most widely used objective measure of reliability.  The sampled population involved 302 respondents from the government secondary schools in Putrajaya Federal Territory, Malaysia.  The items had been translated into the Malay language and back translated into English.  Results show that the internal consistency of Crobanch’s Alpha 0.90.  It can be concluded that FLCAS in Malay version is an appropriate instrument to measure the levels of language anxiety among the Malaysian secondary school students who learn English as a second language.


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