scholarly journals How Fear Affects EFL Acquisition: The Case of “Terminale” Students in Cameroon

Author(s):  
Solange SWIRI TUMASANG

Despite the growing interest in investigating and exploring potential causes and the manifestation of language anxiety amongst EFL learners, the potential sources of this complicated phenomenon have not been widely researched and identified in the Cameroonian context. Horwitz and Young (1991, P.14) state, “we have been truly surprised at the number of students who express anxiety and distress in their language class”. This paper sets out to investigate the potential causes of fear, its manifestation and the possible recommendation to salvage this problem that significantly affects EFL acquisition in final year secondary students of the French subsystem (Terminale) of education in Cameroon. The theoretical framework for this study is the foreign language anxiety scale as established by Horwitz et al. (1986). Data collection involves participant observation and a questionnaire administered to 100 students. The findings revealed that Cameroonian EFL learners experience a very high level of fear, ranging from communication apprehension and fear of a negative evaluation. The conclusion points out that fear is due to the non-mastery of basic structures and therefore questions the appropriateness of the approach used in teaching EFL in Cameroon. The paper proposes possible strategies to effectively teach EFL that will reduce language anxiety and promote self-confidence in the learners. Fighting against erroneous beliefs such as “C’est Dieu qui donne l’anglais” (English is a gift from God) will also help students get more implicated in learning English.

Author(s):  
Abdalaziz M. Toubot ◽  
Goh Hock Seng ◽  
Azizah Binti Atan Abdullah

This study aims at investigating EFL the fourth-year students’ level of speaking anxiety. Also, the study investigates the main three factors (communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and low self-confidence) that contribute to increasing speaking anxiety among EFL learners. The Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) has been adapted to collect quantitative data and specifically measure speaking anxiety. The sample of this study was 300 fourth-year English department students at three universities in Libya. The findings of this study revealed that students experienced a moderate to high level of EFL speaking anxiety. Additionally, the findings of the study revealed that the low self-confidence factor received the highest average followed by fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension factors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Al-Saggaf ◽  
Fatimatul Amirah Najla binti Mohd Zawawi ◽  
Ali Hadi Al-Aidaros

The study aims to identify Higher Education students' level of language anxiety in the classroom. Moreover, the study also investigated the Higher Education Institute students' level of anxiety in each of the components in English language. 236 students from a Higher Education Institute participated in this study. The quantitative method has been used in this study and a set of questionnaire was adapted from FLCAS that was developed by Horwitz et al. (1986). For the finding, the study found that Higher Education Institute students have moderate level of language anxiety. Therefore, the study also revealed that the Higher Education Institute students have a moderate level of language anxiety in the test anxiety component and fear of negative evaluation component. On the other hand, Higher Education Institute students' have a high level of language anxiety in the communication apprehension component. The current study could help future educators to acknowledge more on language anxiety and help educators to find a good solution for these students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Asjad Ahmed Saeed Balla

This paper investigates the level of anxiety due to learning English as a foreign language. It tries to answer these questions: 1-Is anxiety a factor in hindering English proficiency? 2-Does anxiety lead to fear of communication? 3- Which type of anxiety is high among tertiary level female Saudi students? The Foreign Language Anxiety Classroom Scale (FLACS) used as an instrument. The data was collected and statistically analysed through SPSS. This paper revealed that anxiety was one of the major factors that impeded English proficiency. Besides, anxiety also caused fear of communication among the students. Furthermore, it was found that the learners had got a high level of communication apprehension that hindered their contact with their teachers and others. This was followed by test anxiety in which the students expected to fail their test. Students showed great fear of test as they feared to be negatively assessed by teachers, this fact had created great anxiety that influenced their attitudes and behaviour as well.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Alheru Akbar ◽  
Dedi Sofyan ◽  
Indah Damayanti

This research attempted to find out the factors causing foreign language anxiety in speaking. This research was  carried out by employing descriptive quantitative design. The population of this research was the third semester students of English Education Study Program of University of Bengkulu in academic year 2017/2018. The samples of this research were taken by using total sampling tehcnique, i.e 79 students. The data were collected by questionnaire consisted of 29questions related to the anxiety. The results of this study showed that the students mostly had the anxiety. There were three factors that causing the anxiety of the students in speaking; Test Anxiety (Mildly Affected; Mean Score: 3.09), Fear of Negative Evaluation (Mildly Affected;Mean Score: 3.00), and Communication Apprehension (Mildly Affected; Mean Score: 2.90). In conclusion, there were three factors that causing the student’ anxiety in speaking, and the most dominant factors is the Test Anxiety.  In addition, from the test anxiety, it was found that mostly students were afraid of the consequences failing their speaking class


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-239
Author(s):  
Iman Nugroho ◽  
Fauzi Miftakh ◽  
Yuna Tresna Wahyuna

Due to pandemic covid-19, the learning setting has changed from face-to-face to an online learning environment to prevent the further spread of infection. This change mostly affected the state of psychological, specifically anxiety issues.  Specific anxiety called Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) appears as anxiety affiliates with foreign language learning. Despite foreign language anxiety is evidenced to be hinder students’ achievements, there are only a few studies that have explored FLA in an online setting. Therefore, by using a case study, this research paper tried to investigate the factors of speaking anxiety of 5 students from different anxiety levels. These students were selected from a total of 30 students using the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), which later be interviewed and asked to write a reflective journal. The result showed that some sources of each categorical factor (communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation) can be classified as inter-lingual or intra-lingual factors. Moreover, some sources of factors have developed to new manifestations due to learning setting’ shifting. Additionally, as a part of communication apprehension, teachers’ bad teaching habits appeared as the most common factor to arise students’ speaking anxiety. Therefore, this study suggests teachers to evaluate their teaching habits, to reduce the influence of bad teaching habits on the students’ speaking anxiety.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (102) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Asta Lileikienė ◽  
Lina Danilevičienė

Background. Anxiety includes uncomfortable feelings when learning or using the new language. It continues to exist in the university foreign language classroom as well. A number of foreign language students report feeling anxious about language learning. Research aim was to investigate the foreign language anxiety (in our case, English as a foreign language, EFL) in the classroom context at tertiary level in relation to its effect on foreign language acquisition as well as to design recommendations of how to reduce or exclude foreign language anxiety from the university foreign language classroom. Methods. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by E. K. Horwitz, M. B. Horwitz, and Cope (1986) was used. The questionnaire consisted of 5 statements about the respondents’ general background and 33 statements which were evaluated on the Likert scale from 1 to 5 by the research participants. The research sample involved 200 first and second year students of Lithuanian Sports University . Results. The research analysis revealed that the respondents generally felt anxious speaking in the language class, making mistakes and being corrected by the teacher, worrying about the consequences of failing foreign language class and speaking with native speakers. The correlation between the students’ level of knowledge and their feeling of anxiety was established: students of lower level (A2 and B1) tended to feel higher levels of anxiety. Moreover, female participants of this study exhibited higher levels of foreign language anxiety. Conclusions. Foreign language anxiety proved to be a powerful predictor for demotivation in foreign language learning and impeded the acquisition of foreign languages. The research analysis revealed that the majority of younger respondents demonstrated a higher degree of anxiety. The more mature the students were, the more confident they felt in EFL classes. It was found that female students felt higher level of anxiety in learning English as a foreign language than male students. They were more inclined to hesitate and felt anxious in the language classroom, while male undergraduates were more confident and had a greater ability to cope with the feelings of anxiety and nervousness. Students with higher knowledge of English language (level B2) showed lower levels of anxiety and felt more confident in language class. A large number of failures was observed at the pre-intermediate and lower intermediate (A2/B1) levels. Therefore, the learners with high anxiety often got low achievement and low achievement made them more anxious about learning.


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