scholarly journals A Model of Foreign Language Anxiety in the Saudi EFL Context

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fakieh Alrabai
2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Rouhani

Emotional intelligence, as concerned with how an individual recognizes and regulates his or her emotions, has been in limelight quite recently. The present study seeks to fill a small gap in the literature on emotional intelligence, together with foreign language anxiety and empathy. To this end, short literary readings are used in a cognitive-affective reading-based course to see how emotional intelligence, foreign language anxiety and empathy are affected. Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2002) Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), Cooper's (1996/1997) EQ-Map, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope's (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Test (FLCAS) and Caruso and Mayer's (1998) Multi-Dimensional Emotional Empathy Scale (MDEES) were administered to 70 Iranian EFL undergraduate students in a pretest posttest quasi-experimental design. MANOVA and ANCOVA were conducted. The results revealed that the cognitive-affective reading-based course in which literary readings were used significantly improved the subjects' emotional intelligence scores from the MSCEIT measure as well as empathy (MDEES) scores, but significantly decreased their foreign language anxiety (FLCAS) scores. The pedagogical implications for learners, teachers, educators and materials developers are presented.


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):  
Elias Bensalem

The present study focuses on the link between foreign language anxiety (FLA), self-perceived proficiency, and multilingualism in the under-explored EFL context of Saudi Arabia. Ninety six Arabic learners of English (56 males, 40 females) answered the Arabic version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLACS; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). The analyses revealed that Saudi multilinguals suffered from low to moderate levels of FLA with female participants experiencing more anxiety than their male counterparts. Multiple regression analyses revealed that gender and self-perceived proficiency explained over a quarter of variance in FLA. Furthermore, the study did not find any role of experience abroad in predicting FLA.


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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