scholarly journals FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY IN UNIVERSITY LEARNING: SELF-PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS ENGAGED IN SPORTS

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (112) ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Asta Lileikienė ◽  
Lina Danilevičienė

Background. Research aimed at the analysis of self-perceptions of students of foreign language anxiety in the classroom context in relation to its effect on foreign language acquisition. It focused on foreign language, as a skill needed for versatile education, which would lead to a successful career in sports or would aid in pursuing health enhancing leisure activities later in life. Methods. The qualitative approach of research was adopted in this study. Twenty subjects involved in the study programs as Sports Coaching at the Lithuanian Sports University and Medicine at the University of Health Sciences participated in the research. A semi-structured interview was conducted by the researchers based on 10 open-ended questions about foreign language anxiety. Results. Although the perceptions of students’ own English language competence were found to be an important source of anxiety for the interviewed students, most of the respondents perceive the necessity of trying to cope with stress and anxiety themselves. In addition, instructors appeared to be creating the feeling of relaxation rather than being the anxiety-provoking ones in the classroom. Conclusion. Awareness of the fact that FLA really exists and appears to be an obstacle for students’ academic achievement needs to be acknowledged. To address this issue, collaboration rather than competition must be implemented as a tool in classes for further advancement in learning. Therefore, these measures might help to reinforce self-esteem and achieve better results in the foreign language classroom and, thus, in the overall goal of studies in the student learning process.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Hualan Tan ◽  
Zhilong Xie

English serves as a bridge of communication for the people from all over the world as it plays an increasingly crucial role in the process of globalization. In accordance with English curriculum standards issued by the Ministry of Education in 2011, the ultimate goal of English language discipline is to communicate. But over these years, China’s English education has been difficult to get out of the dilemma of “Dumb English”. When facing the real oral communication situations, students are still too nervous to speak with a great deal of fluency and accuracy. Therefore, the present study aims to explore the relationship between English language anxiety, gender, years of English learning and final oral English achievement by inviting 41 English major freshmen of foreign language departments of Nanchang Business College. For this purpose, this study adopts a reliable Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Horwitz and Cope (1986) to measure students’ anxiety. The results reveal that anxiety levels between males and females are similar; there is also no significant difference among years of learning English; however, a significantly negative correlation between college students’ foreign language anxiety and their oral English learning achievement was found.


Author(s):  
Christina Lhaksmita Anandari

This research examined what causes speech-production-related foreign-language anxiety among Indonesian students majoring in English Language Education. Furthermore, it also looks into whether and how selfreflective activities are able to help these students reduce their anxiety. The data were gathered from a qualitative research conducted on a group of Indonesian students taking a Public Speaking course at Sanata Dharma University. The subjects were given two types of questionnaires to explore the possible causes of their anxiety and their reflection on the process of learning the public speaking skills. The research results show three causes of foreign language anxiety: fear, shyness, and discomfort. The results also demonstrate that self-reflections helped the students deal with foreign language anxiety because they helped the students identify their strengths and weaknesses,conduct problem solving, and increase confidence.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Gregersen

.This study examines whether nonverbal visual and/or auditory channels are more effective in detecting foreign-language anxiety. Recent research suggests that language teachers are often able to successfully decode the nonverbal behaviors indicative of foreign-language anxiety; however, relatively little is known about whether visual and/or auditory channels are more effective. To this end, a group of 36 preservice English-language teachers were asked to view videotaped oral presentations of seven beginning English-language learners under three conditions: visual only, audio only, and a combination of visual and audio in order to judge their foreign-language anxiety status. The evidence gathered through this study did not conclusively determine the channel though which foreign-language anxiety could be most accurately decoded, but it did suggest indicators in the auditory and visual modes that could lead to more successful determination of behaviors indicative of negative affect.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammara Kalsoom ◽  
Niaz Hussain Soomro ◽  
Zahid Hussain Pathan

This study investigates the impact of social support and foreign language anxiety (FLA) on learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in English (L2) inside the classroom in an EFL context of Pakistan. The study administered adapted questionnaires on willingness to communicate (WTC), social support and foreign language anxiety (FLA) to 200 undergraduates of University of Balochistan, Quetta, Pakistan. To analyse the data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were performed in the SPSS. The findings on the social support revealed that father’s support, teachers’ support, best friends’ support, and other friends’ support exerted impact on learners’ L2 WTC. Additionally, anxiety also negatively and significantly predicted L2 WTC with a medium effect size (f2 = .26). These findings signify that provision of social support and means to minimize L2 anxiety can help L2 learners enhance their volitional readiness for L2 communication. The findings of this study have implications for EFL classroom participation in the target language and offer an insight for the policy and planning for the use of English language in an EFL context.


Author(s):  
Wan Iman Wan Salim ◽  
◽  
Vijayaletchumy Subramaniam ◽  
Arbaayah Ali Termizi

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Rhodora R. Jugo

This study has focused on determining the level, sources, and causes of foreign language anxiety of students taking up teacher education courses in the Philippines and how language anxiety affects the English proficiency of the respondents and their language learning. A total of 242 learners from a Philippine-based learning institution answered an English proficiency exam (EPE) and a questionnaire comprising two parts: a 30-item English Language Anxiety Scale (ELAS) and a set of questions on causes of anxiety and effects on language learning. Means, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage were calculated and used to characterize language anxiety level, sources, and causes. Correlation and regression analyses of the language anxiety variables and English proficiency of the respondents were then conducted. Follow-up interviews were also done for selected respondents in order to understand the nature and mechanism of the investigated relationships. The results confirmed that the speaking activity, error correction, and communicating with English speakers are sources of high anxiety of the Filipino learners, while the writing activity, negative self-perception, and noncomprehension are sources of moderate anxiety. All of the sources of anxiety were shown to have a significant negative relationship with second language anxiety, and simple regression analysis revealed that foreign language anxiety is a significant predictor of English proficiency. However, further analysis of the specific sources of anxiety using multiple regression analysis identified speaking activities anxiety as the only significant predictor of English proficiency.


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