scholarly journals Foreign Language Anxiety and Student Interpreters’ Learning Outcomes: Implications for the Theory and Measurement of Interpretation Learning Anxiety

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.

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


2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine K. Horwitz

The possibility that anxiety interferes with language learning has long interested scholars, language teachers, and language learners themselves. It is intuitive that anxiety would inhibit the learning and/or production of a second language (L2). The important term in the last sentence is ‘anxiety’. The concept of anxiety is itself multi-faceted, and psychologists have differentiated a number of types of anxiety including trait anxiety, state anxiety, achievement anxiety, and facilitative-debilitative anxiety. With such a wide variety of anxiety-types, it is not surprising that early studies on the relationship between ‘anxiety’ and achievement provided mixed and confusing results, and Scovel (1978 – this timeline) rightly noted that anxiety is ‘not a simple, unitary construct that can be comfortably quantified into ‘high’ or ‘low’ amounts’ (p. 137). Scovel did not, however, anticipate the identification in the mid-1980s of a unique form of anxiety that some people experience in response to learning and/or using an L2. Typically referred to as language anxiety or foreign language anxiety (FLA), this anxiety is categorized as a situation-specific anxiety, similar in type to other familiar manifestations of anxiety such as stage fright or test anxiety.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Dewaele

Emotions are at the heart of the foreign language learning process. Without emotion, boredom would reign and very little learning would take place. I report on some recent work that has investigated the role of emotion in the foreign language classroom, both positive (foreign language enjoyment) and negatives ones (foreign language anxiety). It seems that both learners and teachers play a crucial role in managing emotions in the classroom. I also report on the difficulties associated with the communication of emotions in a foreign language and on their relative absence in foreign language course books and during classes. This leaves learners ill-prepared to recognise and express emotions appropriately in a foreign language, which is an essential part of sociopragmatic competence. 外国語学習過程の中心には「感情」がある。感情がなければ飽きるのも早く、学びも限られてしまう。本論では、外国語の授業で感情が果たす肯定的な(例:外国語学習の楽しみ)および否定的な(例:外国語学習不安)役割について報告する。そして最近の研究を基に、いかに学習者と教員双方がクラスでの感情のコントロールに深くかかわっているかを考察する。また、外国語で感情を伝えることの難しさについても触れ、外国語の教科書や授業で感情表現が扱われることの少なさが、社会語用論的能力の主な要素である感情表現の理解不足につながっていることを指摘する。


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 1591
Author(s):  
Illahi Bux Gopang ◽  
Faraz Ali Bughio ◽  
Shumaila Aijaz Memon ◽  
Jalal Faiz

Research in second language learning has significantly demonstrated that foreign language anxiety and learner beliefs have been the main domain of inquiry in applied linguistics. Such interest has seen upsurge in studies on L2 anxiety and learner beliefs. This study tends to review language anxiety and learner beliefs in language learning. The review shows moderate and high levels of language anxiety in studies including negative correlation between anxiety and achievement. In addition, it also reveals that learner beliefs have played a role in increasing language anxiety. Moreover, research studies on FLA (foreign language anxiety) and LB (learner beliefs) describe a whole scenario of the exiting literature. The study also critiques some pedagogical strategies suggested in research and how far these are applicable in decreasing language anxiety and avoiding incorrect beliefs about language learning. Further, the research review suggests that different approaches are used to quantify language anxiety and to describe beliefs in language learning. Since, the prime purpose of the study is to review the approaches and their validity and reliability in describing language anxiety and beliefs. The study synthesizes foreign language anxiety and learner beliefs studies and offers some recommendations in order to complement and supplement the existing literature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 365
Author(s):  
Runhan Zhang

Empirical studies have provided evidence for the negative role of foreign language anxiety in language proficiency measured via final course grades, self-assessments, objective language tests, and GPAs. However, its role in language proficiency from the perspective of explicit and implicit L2 knowledge is under-investigated. The current study therefore investigates the relationship between foreign language anxiety and explicit and implicit L2 knowledge in an English as a foreign language context. Participants were 156 university-level non-English majors. The results of the t test and multiple regression analyses showed that foreign language anxiety has a negative role in implicit L2 knowledge and also can predict it, but it was not found to have a significantly negative role in explicit L2 knowledge. The nature of the tests and knowledge may account for the results.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hie Ling Ting ◽  
Jiin Yih Yeo ◽  
Vicky Chin

Learning Mandarin as a foreign language or third language can be very difficult for non-Chinese learners. In the process of learning Mandarin, non-Chinese learners may experience certain level of foreign language anxiety. The objectives of this study are to investigate Mandarin language anxiety level and its associated factors among non-Chinese learners. This study involved 221 non-Chinese learners who enrolled in Introductory Mandarin Language in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Sarawak. The instrument for this study included the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986). The collected data were analysed using Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS) 22. The results of the study indicated that most of the non-Chinese learners experienced a moderate level of anxiety while learning Mandarin. The main factor that contributed to their language anxiety was communication apprehension, followed by fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety.


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