Factors causing students' anxiety in English speaking classes in Le Quy Don high school, Dong Da, Hanoi = Tác nhân gây lo lắng cho học sinh trong việc nói tiếng

As a teacher of English at Le Quy Don high school, from my own observation and experience, I myself have noticed that my students often experience foreign language anxiety especially in

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY

OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ NHÀI

FACTORS CAUSING STUDENTS' ANXIETY IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES IN LE QUY DON HIGH SCHOOL, DONG DA, HANOI

(Các nhân tố gây lo lắng cho học sinh trong việc nói tiếng Anh trên lớp tại

trường THPT Lê Quý Đôn, Đống Đa, Hà Nội )

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

HANOI – 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……….i

ACKNOWDLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

I Theoretical background of anxiety 4

1 Definitions of anxiety 4

2 Types of anxiety 6

2.1 Trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation - specific anxiety 6

2.1.1 Trait anxiety 6

2.1.2 State anxiety 6

2.1.3 Situation-specific Anxiety 7

2.2 Facilitating Anxiety and Debilitating Anxiety 7

II Theoretical background of foreign language classroom anxiety 8

1 Definition of foreign language classroom anxiety 8

2 Early studies of foreign language anxiety 8

3 Components of foreign language anxiety 10

3.1 Communication apprehension 10

3.2 Test anxiety 11

3.3 Fear of negative evaluation 12

4 Manifestations of foreign language learning anxiety 12

5 Sources of foreign language anxiety 13

6 Gender in foreign language anxiety 15

7 Effects of foreign language learning anxiety 16

7.1 Foreign language anxiety and its associations with three stages of language learning 17

7.2 Foreign language learning anxiety and its associations with language achievement 18

a) Debilitating anxiety 18

b) Facilitating anxiety 19

8 Language anxiety in the speaking skill 19

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 22

1 Context 22

2 Participants 22

3 Instruments 23

3.1 Students' journal writings 23

3.2 Teacher's observation 23

Chapter III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24

I FINDINGS 24

1 Students' anxiety through teacher's observation 24

1.1 Case 1 24

1.2 Case 2 25

2 Students' anxiety through students' journal writing 26

2.1 Fear of making mistakes and negative evaluation 26

2.2 Fear of testing 27

2.3 Fear of being focus of attention 27

2.4 Comparison with oneself and with other students 27

2.5 Relationship between teacher and students 28

2.6 Result of low achievement 28

Lack of vocabulary 28

Difficulties in pronunciation 28

Difficulties in grammar 29

II DISCUSSION 29

III SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS 31

1 Recommendations for students 31

2 Recommendations for teachers 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 34

1 Summary of the study 34

2 Limitations of this study 35

3 Recommendations for further study 35

REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I

APPENDICE A I APPENDICE B II APPENDICE C III

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Getting students to respond in classes is a problem that most ESL teachers face The problem of that is particularly acute with non major English students, who are generally considered to be more reserved and reticent than the majored ones Language teachers, including myself, have observed on numerous occasions when teaching in classes, the apprehension and discomfort experienced by many students who are attempting to acquire and produce a foreign language The nervousness and anxiety frequently seems to become particularly aggravated when students are required to speak in front of teacher and other students MacIntyre and Gardner (1991), for example, asserted that "anxiety poses several potential problems for the students of a foreign language because it can interfere with the acquisition, retention, and production of the new language" (p 86)

As a teacher of English at Le Quy Don high school, from my own observation and experience, I myself have noticed that my students often experience foreign language anxiety especially in speaking skill They are afraid of speaking in front of the class, even when the teacher asks them to practice English in pairs or in groups; many of them keep their silence or have discussion in Vietnamese Students are more confident with written tests and they always feel reluctant when being asked to speak English and try to give answers as short as possible Some students even refuse to give any answers when assigned Some of them admit that they cannot find words to say and they always feel nervous and anxious when speaking English with teachers

From this reality in my school and some findings in research, I have found that reducing anxiety in speaking English is of great importance to improve the communicative competence of high school learners Therefore, I decided to conduct a case study on the

topic: "Factors causing students' anxiety in English speaking classes in Le Quy Don High School, Dong Da, Hanoi."

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The first aim of this study was to provide a review of major literature about foreign language learning anxiety as affective variable uniquely related to foreign language classroom situations, especially in speaking English Based on the literature review, this research aimed to take the initiative to investigate the cases' manifestations through psychological symptoms, physical symptoms and behavioral symptoms Moreover, it also analyzed anxiety factors among students and based on those factors, some strategies were suggested to reduce students' anxiety in speaking English

3) Which strategies can be used to successfully cope with language anxiety?

4 Scope of the study

In order to explore high school students' English speaking anxiety in classes, this study investigated and analyzed 2 non major English students at Le Quy Don high school because the researcher had an assumption that the non major English students might experience a higher level of anxiety then the major ones In addition, the researcher was doing teaching those two students during the time this research was being conducted, as a result, it was most convenient for researcher to collect data from students as well as observe the students' manifestations This study only investigated the students' anxiety phenomenon in English speaking performance instead of focusing on all four skills or in learning any foreign language in general

5 Methods of the study

In my opinion, qualitative research methods are the most suitable for this case study because they seek to understand the given research problem from the perspectives of the cases Moreover, qualitative methods are especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions, behaviors and social contexts of particular subjects Some qualitative methods I applied in this study are teacher's observation, students' journal writings In comparison with quantitative methods, qualitative methods are typically more flexible With qualitative methods, the relationship between the researcher and the participants is often less formal Participants have the opportunity to express their ideas more elaborately in their journal writing with greater detail than the

case in quantitative methods

6 Organization of the study

The study is organized into three main parts:

Part A: Introduction

This part offers a brief introduction to the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims and objectives, research questions, the scope, the methods and the organization of the study

Part B: Development

The part consists of four chapters, as follows:

Chapter I: Literature Review

This chapter provides the theoretical background of anxiety with some definitions and types of anxiety It also gives the theoretical background of foreign language anxiety,

in which stated the findings of previous researches relating to the study, gender in foreign language anxiety, the measurement of foreign language anxiety, the possible factors and sources of anxiety and anxiety in speaking skill

Chapter II: Methodology

This chapter addresses the research's context, the participants and the instruments which were used to collect data including students' journal writing, teacher's observation and interviews

Chapter III: Findings and Discussion

The findings from the data collected from teacher's observation, students' journal writing and interviews are presented and discussed in this chapter

In this chapter, I also provide some possible suggested improvements to reduce students' anxiety in English speaking in classroom

Part C: Conclusion and implications

This part offers an overview of the major findings, the implications and suggestions for further research in this matter

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this review of literature, I shall state theoretical background of anxiety in general, as well as foreign language anxiety and language anxiety in speaking skill

I Theoretical background of anxiety

1 Definitions of anxiety

There has been a variety of studies carried out on anxiety Simply speaking, anxiety

is a kind of troubled feeling in the mind It is "a subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system" (Horwitz, 1986) or “the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when

learning a second language” (MacIntyre, 1999) Second language anxiety is defined here

as distinct complexity of self- perception, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to using a foreign/ second language for communication beyond class language

Hansen (1977) called anxiety as "an experience of general uneasiness, a sense of foreboding, a feeling of tension" (p.91) Anxiety might exert a deleterious influence on language achievement, and equally intuitively, that poor language achievement might arouse even more anxiety

According to Hilgard, “anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described

by psychologists as a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object” (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971)

In short, anxiety is a feeling of tension, apprehension and nervousness associated with the situation of learning a foreign language In general, it can have physical, emotional, and behavioral manifestations and these manifestations can differ with each individual

2 Types of anxiety

2.1 Trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation - specific anxiety

Usually anxiety is classified into trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety

The four trait anxiety scale options are: (1) "Almost never" which responses indicates lowest degree of trait anxiety; (2) "Sometimes"; (3) "Often"; and (4) "Almost always" which signifies the highest degree of trait anxiety

2.1.2 State anxiety

State anxiety, on the one hand, is fleeting and not an enduring characteristic of an individual's personality It is a "transitory state or condition of the organism that varies in intensity and fluctuates over time" (Speilberger, 1966, p.12)

The four state anxiety scale options are (1) "Not at all" which points to the lowest level of state anxiety; (2) "Somewhat"; (3) "Moderately so"; and (4) "Very much so" which reflects the highest degree of state anxiety

Morris et al (1981), in their definitions of both state anxiety and trait anxiety, take into account the importance of "situation": "State anxiety refers to transitory experiences of tension, apprehension, and activation of the autonomic nervous system in certain situations, whereas trait anxiety refers to a personality variable of anxiety proneness, the tendency to experience state anxiety in a variety of situations" (p.543)

2.1.3 Situation-specific Anxiety

"It can be considered to be the probability of becoming anxious in a particular type

of situation, such as during tests, when solving mathematics problems, or when speaking a second language" (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994, p.2) The author Oh (1990) thought of foreign language anxiety as a situation-specific anxiety that "students experience in the classroom which is characterized by self-centered thought, feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, and emotional reactions in the language classroom"

As regards investigating anxiety in language learning, which is of special interest to

us here, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) considered that the situation-specific approach

"offers more to the understanding of anxiety because the respondents are queried about various aspects of the situation" (p 91)

2.2 Facilitating Anxiety and Debilitating Anxiety

Beside the classification above, other approaches have distinguished anxiety into facilitating and debilitating, Alpert & Haber (1960); Klienmann (1977); Scovel (1978)

In which, facilitating anxiety is thought to be a kind of anxiety that improves learning and performance, whereas debilitating anxiety is associated with poor learning and performance

Some early researches suggested that different quantities of facilitating anxiety and debilitating anxiety may be present in the same individual at the same time Alpert and Haber (1960) asserted that "an individual may possess a large amount of both anxieties, or

of one but not the other, or of none of either" (p 213) and it has also been proposed that

"facilitating and debilitating anxiety may function together" (Scovel, 1978)

II Theoretical background of foreign language classroom anxiety

1 Definition of foreign language classroom anxiety

Horwitz and her colleagues described the physiological and psychological symptoms of foreign language classroom anxiety at the Learning Skills Center at the University of Texas that many symptoms occur in anxious states in general:"tenseness,

trembling, perspiring, palpitations, and sleep disturbances" (p.129) In language learners, anxiety was also observed in such symptoms as "freezing" in class, "going blank" before exams, and feeling reticence about entering the classroom The researchers noted how these learners "experience apprehension, worry, even dread They have difficulty concentrating, become forgetful, sweat, and have palpitations They exhibit avoidance behavior such as missing class and postponing homework" (p.126) These observations and discussions led authors to put forward a definition of foreign language classroom anxiety

as "a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process" (p.128)

2 Early studies of foreign language anxiety

With the shifting of researches focus from teachers to learners in Second Language Acquisition, anxiety, as a very important affective factor, has been mainly explored by many researchers since the 1970s

Chastain (1975), in an investigation into affective and ability variables in relation to achievement in French, German, and Spanish at elementary levels, explored test anxiety, trait anxiety, introversion as against extroversion, and creativity, and reported inconsistent results He encountered a "strong negative correlation" between test anxiety and scores in French that had been taught through the audio-lingual method, but no statistically significant connection to grades in French that had been taught in the traditional way

In a later investigation into anxiety which made use of a modified and translated Alpert and Haber's (1960) Achievement Anxiety Test, Kleinmann (1977) compared a Spanish-or-Portuguese-speaking group with an Arabic-speaking group of learners of English He posited that each group would tend to avoid certain English grammatical structures that were lacking in their mother tongue and speculated that students who had higher levels of facilitating anxiety would utilize these difficult structures

The major concern of the earlier studies was the causes of language anxiety As early as 1983, Bailey, through the analysis of the diaries of 11 learners, had found that

competitiveness can lead to anxiety Besides, he found that tests and learners' perceived relationship with their teachers also contributed to learners' anxiety These three aspects that Bailey identified were supported in subsequent studies, especially in Young‟s According to Young (1991), there are six potential causes of language anxiety which include personal and interpersonal, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language teaching, instructor - learner interactions, classroom procedures and language tests From this list we can see that Young, in fact, identified the causes from three aspects, that is, the aspects of learners, teachers and instructional practice, to which Bailey‟s findings also complied

In Scovel's (1978) review of anxiety in language learning, he gave some other instances of the "mixed and confusing results" (p 132) encountered in the literature He suggested that it might be profitable to explore further Alpert and Haber's (1960) two fold approach of debilitating and facilitating anxiety He thought it might provide "an attractive path down which future research on the effects of anxiety on foreign language acquisition might proceed" (p 138) In view of this confusion, Scovel recommended that researchers should have a clear idea about the kind of anxiety they were investigating, such as debilitating anxiety, facilitating anxiety, test anxiety, and so on, and about how these might relate to the learner variables that intervene "intrinsic/extrinsic factors and the affective/cognitive variables" (p 140)

In mainland China, there have also been some studies conducted in the Chinese context to explore the relationship between anxiety and achievement (Lei, 2004; Tang, 2005; Wang, 2003; Xue, 2005) Most of them employed Horwitz‟s FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale) and found a negative correlation Going through these studies, it was found that the subjects participating in the studies were mostly college students High school students who were at the critical stage of foreign language learning and may experience more anxiety in this process, however, were neglected

However, to date, findings by Horwitz et al (1986) have been the most influential They identified three causes of language anxiety, that is, communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation Based on these three components they also designed a Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale including thirty-three items This

scale was later widely used by researchers to measure foreign language learners‟ anxiety

and examine the effect of anxiety on learning in different contexts

3 Components of foreign language anxiety

As mentioned in previous part, the findings by Horwitz et al (1986), which were the most significant ones and we consider language anxiety with relation to performance evaluation within academic and social contexts, include 3 components: communication apprehension; test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation

3.1 Communication apprehension

Horwitz et al (1986) defines communication apprehension as "a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people According to McCroskey (1997), communication apprehension is as "an individual's level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons"

Daly (1991) presents five explanations in the development of communication apprehension which can offer an insight into the issue of understanding what causes language anxiety for EFL learners In the first place, he explains communication apprehension in terms of "genetic disposition" indicating that one's genetic legacy may be

a substantial contributor to one's anxiety Later in 1997, McCroskey stated the same that children seem to be born with certain personality predispositions towards communication apprehension Secondly, he explains it in terms of reinforcement and punishment related to the act of communication He asserts that individuals who, from early childhood, are greeted with negative reactions from others in response to their attempt to communicate develop a sense that staying quiet is more highly rewarded than talking

Communication apprehension obviously plays a large role in foreign language anxiety People who are apprehensive speaking in dyads or groups are likely to be even in more trouble when doing so in a foreign language class, where "in addition to feeling less

in control of the communicative situation, they also may feel that their attempts at oral work are constantly being monitored" (Horwitz et al., 1986) This apprehension is

explained "in relation to the learner's negative self-perceptions caused by the inability to understand others and make himself understood" (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989)

3.2 Test anxiety

Test anxiety, as explained by Horwitz et al (1986), "refers to a type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of failure" Test anxiety is quite pervasive in language classrooms because of its continuous performance evaluative nature Test - anxious students often put unrealistic demands on themselves and feel that anything less than a perfect test performance is a failure Students who are test-anxious in foreign language class probably experience considerable difficulty since tests and quizzes are frequent and even the brightest and most prepared students often make errors It is also important to note that oral testing has the potential to provoke both test and oral communication anxiety simultaneously in susceptible student

3.3 Fear of negative evaluation

This component is defined as the apprehension about other's evaluation, avoidance

of evaluative situation, and the expectation that others would evaluate one negatively (Horwitz et al 1986) It's broader in scope than the test anxiety because it may occur in any social, evaluative situation such as interviewing for a job or speaking in foreign language classes In the language classroom, fear of negative evaluation is likely to be manifested in

a student's over concern with academic and personal evaluation of his performance and competence in the target language (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1988) Like communication anxious individuals, people who fear negative evaluation rarely initiate conversation and interact minimally Students who experience this anxiety tend to sit passively in the classes, withdraw from activities that could increase their language skills and may even avoid class entirely (Ely, 1986; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986)

4 Manifestations of foreign language learning anxiety

Anxiety, in general, can have physical/psychological, emotional, and behavioral manifestation and these manifestations can differ with each individual

According to Oxford (1999, cited in Williams & Andrade, 2009, p 4, and cited in Yanling & Guizheng, 2006, p 98):

- Physical symptoms can include rapid heartbeat, muscle tension, dry mouth, and excessive perspiration

- Psychological symptoms can include embarrassment, feelings of helplessness, fear, going blank, inability to concentrate, as well as poor memory recall and retention

- Behavioral symptoms can include physical actions such as squirming, fidgeting, playing with hair or clothing, nervously touching objects, stuttering or stammering, displaying jittery behavior, being unable to reproduce the sounds or intonation

of the target language even after repeated practice More importantly, behavioral symptoms of anxiety can be manifested in negative avoidance behaviors like inappropriate silence, monosyllabic or non-committal responses, lack of eye contact, unwillingness to participate, coming late, arriving unprepared, showing indifference, cutting class, and withdrawal from the course

- Other signs which might reflect language anxiety are over studying, perfectionism, hostility, excessive competitiveness, as well as excessive self-effacement and self-criticism

5 Sources of foreign language anxiety

There are various causes or factors that lead to foreign language learning anxiety, however, I just list in the study some major ones that students often cope with when learning a foreign language

The first is fear of negative evaluation Students‟ fears are brought on by the environment of the foreign language classroom, where they are constantly being evaluated after each presentation Young (1990) cites that speaking in front of teacher and other students in the classroom is particularly anxiety-producing activity She refers to studies such as Koch and Terrell's (1991), in which the majority of students learning a foreign

language through the Natural Approach said that they experienced most anxiety when doing oral presentations in front of the class Horwitz also states that "the evaluation from the only fluent speaker in the room, the teacher, is crucial to a second language student" (Horwitz et al., 1986) However, the evaluation or criticisms from peers is also a major cause of anxiety Young (1991) found that anxious learners thought their skills in language were weaker than their peers‟ and they were being looked down Kitano (2001) uses information from Young‟s (1990) survey study in which students learning Spanish said that they would speak out loud and answer more questions if they were not afraid to give the wrong answer

According to Skehan (1989), anxiety "may be partly the result of low achievement" (p.115) He commented on an early assertion by Speilberger (1962) about academic achievement that the "influence of anxiety changed as a function of ability level", in the sense that anxiety was shown to be beneficial to learners of high ability, but was linked to lower achievement in "low-ability students, and especially average ability students" For example, students may think that they are unable to learn another language or pronounce strange sounds and words, unable to understand and answer questions and they don't know how to translate their ideas into the target language

Searching for sources of language anxiety, Bailey (1983) took into account learners' perspectives on language anxiety and made use of the diary entries of students She reported that learners attributed anxiety to several sources, listed by Skehan in the following way:

- "Comparison of oneself with other students, either for their performance, or for their anxiety levels

- One's relationship with the teacher, either in relation to one's perceptions of the teacher's expectations or one's need to gain the teacher's approval

- Tests

- Comparison with oneself, and one's own personal standards and goal" (Skehan, 1989, p 116)

Learners‟ self perception of speaking ability in the target language is one of the main cause of foreign language learning anxiety Horwitz et al (1986) claims that most of the learners‟ anxiety comes from their self-concept of ability They compare their skills with native speakers of the target language, which lead to embarrassment and shame that they cannot pronounce exactly like the native speakers Kitano (2001) argues that

“speaking skill is usually the first thing that learners compare with that of peers, teachers, and native speakers” (p 550)

A source of anxiety can also come from the fear of testing Most students experience test anxiety, especially in the oral tests Horwitz et al (1986) state that many students report that they know the grammar but forget it while taking the test when a lot of grammar items must be remembered in a test Anxiety is produced when students discover that they make a mistake and give a wrong answer because of their nervousness during the test Some learners are apprehensive about certain formats, and are anxious when they find that the test does not evaluate topics or use kinds of items covered in class Young (1991) states that, “In language testing, the greater degree of student evaluation and the more unfamiliar and ambiguous the test tasks and formats, the more the learner anxiety is produced” (p 429) It means if students have never seen that specific question format, they might experience test anxiety during that test In addition, studying can cause test anxiety Some students may study a lot if they received a poor grade on a previous test or are anxious about making mistakes on an upcoming test If the material that the student studied is not what is on the test, fear and anxiety could produce This may lead to studying avoidance Horwitz et al (1986) states that, “Anxious students may avoid studying and in some cases skip class entirely in an effort alleviate their anxiety” (p 127)

Finally, the instructor can serve as a source of anxiety Contrary to research, some instructors think that intimidating their students will cause them to become motivated to learn the foreign language Young (1991) states that anxiety may be evoked if instructors believe that an authoritarian manner is conducive to improving students' performance, if they consider that all students' mistakes should be corrected, and if they "think their role is more like a drill sergeant's than a facilitator's" (p 428)

6 Gender in foreign language anxiety

In general, females are thought to be more adept in language learning than males Female students usually score higher than male students in English exams Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that females are more confident in their abilities to learn a new language well Once they gain faith in their capabilities, they will be more ready to

“approach threatening situations” (Dörnyei, 2001) in English classes On the contrary, males, who have higher frequency of language learning failure, are inclined to attribute their bad performance in English classes to their low ability Consequently, they are more anxious in English classes

However, possible differences between female and male participants as regards anxiety levels and in achievement have been examined in some language anxiety studies Some researches (Chang, 1997; Daly, Kreser, & Rogharr, 1994) have suggested that female students often have higher levels of anxiety than males in academic settings In the field of language learning, Padilla, Cervantes, Maldonado, and Garcia (1988) reported that female students were more likely to be more apprehensive than male learners Cheng (2002), who investigated English writing anxiety in Taiwanese learners, discovered that

females were significantly more anxious than males

Elkhafaifi (2005) found that females and males exhibited different levels of anxiety depending on the kind of anxiety experienced: female students presented significantly higher levels of general Arabic language anxiety levels than males, but no statistically

significant differences were seen between sexes in Arabic listening anxiety

According to Pappamihiel (2001), English language anxiety experienced by females in the mainstream classroom was related to "social performance" (p.34), and was

"a type of performance anxiety more related to interactions with peers" (p.33), whereas in the ESL classroom it was "more related to academic anxiety and worries about achievement" (p.33) As regards language achievement, Aida (1994) reported that females received significantly higher grades than males in Japanese in the final exam, females scoring an average of 89.7%, as against an average mark of 86.1% for males Similarly, in Kitano's study (2001) of Japanese college students, male students have been found to feel more anxiety when they perceived their spoken Japanese less competent than that of others; however, such a relationship was not observed among female students

7 Effects of foreign language learning anxiety

7.1 Foreign language anxiety and its associations with three stages of language learning

Language learning includes three stages: input, processing and output and language anxiety has been theorized to occur at all these three stages This description will point out why second language learners make mistakes and the reasons of linguistic difficulties second language learners face in learning and using the target language This can offer an insight to help understand anxiety experienced while communicating in the target language

Input is the first stage of language learning and anxiety at input stage (input anxiety) refers to the anxiety experienced by the learners when they encounter a new word

or phrase in the target language Input anxiety is receiver's apprehension when receiving information from auditory and visual clues According to Krashen (1985, p.3), what causes incomprehensibility is learners' affective filter which needs to be lower for successful language acquisition, otherwise input may be filtered out by nervous or bored learner that makes it unavailable for acquisition „Affective filter‟ at the input stage may reduce the effectiveness of input by restricting the anxious students‟ ability to pay full attention to what their instructors say and reduce their ability to represent input internally (Tobias,

1977, cited in Onwuegbuzie et al., (2000, p.475)) Learners‟ with high level of input anxiety request their instructors to repeat sentences quite frequently compared to their low-

anxious counterparts (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994b, p.475) Input anxiety is more likely to cause miscomprehension of the message sent by the interlocutors, which may lead to the loss of successful communication and an increased level of anxiety

Meanwhile, Onwuegbuzie et al stated that anxiety at the processing stage, called processing anxiety, refers to the “apprehension students experience when performing cognitive operations on new information” , (2000, p.476) Psychologists believe that learners have to process information and to pay attention to produce any linguistic aspect

by using cognitive sources, however, the amount of information or focused mental activity

a learner can engage in at one time is limited Where limited processing mental capacity

may cause anxiety, conversely, anxiety may restrict this operational capacity of the mind, and both together may cause impaired performance or altered behavior Researchers have found a recursive or cyclical relationship among anxiety, cognition and behavior, Leary (1990); Levitt (1980) cited in MacIntyre (1995, p.92).

Anxiety while communicating in the target language is more likely to appear at the output stage, which entirely depends upon the successful completion of the previous stages: input and processing Anxiety at this stage refers to learners' nervousness or fear experienced when required to demonstrate their ability to use previously learned material,

Onwuegbuzie et al (2000, p.475) According to Tobias (1977) output anxiety involves

interference, which is manifested after the completion of the processing stage but before its effective reproduction as output ManIntyre and Gardner asserted, “High level of anxiety at this stage might hinder students‟ ability to speak… in the target language” (1994b cited in

2000, p.475)

To sum up, all the three stages of language learning have been found to be somewhat interdependent, each stage depends on the successful completion of the previous one

7.2 Foreign language learning anxiety and its associations with language achievement a) Debilitating anxiety

Most research on foreign language anxiety has focused on investigating the relationship between anxiety and language achievement Empirical research has established that language anxiety is associated with "deficits in listening comprehension, reduced word production, impaired vocabulary learning, lower grades in language courses, and lower scores on standardized tests" (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994, pp.2-3) Numerous studies have found that anxiety has a moderate negative correlation with language performance with some researchers claiming it is one of the strongest predictors of success

in foreign language learning (MacIntyre, 1999, cited in Woodwo, 2006, p.312) According

to Wilson (2006, p 93), various writings about language anxiety indicated that it is difficult to determine whether anxiety is a cause or an effect of poor language learning and

achievement It would seem logical that poor language ability might be a source of anxiety

As Horwitz (2001, cited in Wilson, 2006, p.85) pointed out "it is easy to conceptualize foreign language anxiety as a result of poor language learning ability A student does poorly in language learning and consequently feels anxious about his or her language class" However, it is possible that anxiety is not simply a result of poor language capacity and achievement, but that anxiety itself may interfere with an individual's existing language ability and become a cause of poor language learning and performance Wilson (2006, p.95-96) cited several studies by Saito and Samimy (1996), MacInttyre et al (1997), Onwuegbuzie et al (1999), and Cheng et al (1999) to demonstrate that there might be a

recursive effect between anxiety and language achievement

b) Facilitating anxiety

It might appear that anxiety is mostly debilitating to foreign language learning or performance Nonetheless, several studies (Alpert & Haber, 1960; Mills, Pajares & Herron, 2006; cited in Kao & Craigie, 2010, p.61) showed positive correlation between anxiety and language performance, demonstrating that facilitative anxiety could serve as alertness to promote foreign language learning Therefore, the teacher's job is to help students keep their anxiety adequate as a proper level of anxiety plays a positive role and motivates students to maintain their efforts in learning (Na, 2007, pp.30-31)

8 Language anxiety in the speaking skill

Speaking skill is extremely anxiety-provoking in many language students and that

is often to arouse more anxiety than the other skills Daly (1991) reported that in some individuals "fear of giving a speech in public exceeded such phobias as fear of snakes, elevators, and heights" (p.3) Anxiety reactions suffered by many students when speaking

or when being asked to speak by the teacher in the foreign language classroom include

"distortion of sounds, inability to reproduce the intonation and rhythm of the language, freezing up when called on to perform, and forgetting words or phrases just learned or simply refusing to speak and remaining silent" (Young, 1991) "Students said that they did not feel too apprehensive during drills or about speaking if they had time to plan their spoken interventions, but would freeze if they had to speak spontaneously" (Horwitz et al

1986) They also noted that students who are apprehensive about making mistakes in front

of others "seem to feel constantly tested and to perceive every correction as a failure" (p.130) Indeed, speaking tests seem to be particularly anxiety-provoking, as they probably arouse the three constituents of language anxiety

Classroom activities and the learning/teaching environment seem to bear directly

on students' anxiety and on their performance in speaking Young found that "most students would prefer to offer responses orally themselves instead of being called on to give an answer" (Young, 1990) Students would be less nervous about oral exams if they had more practice speaking in class and most expressed a wish to have their errors corrected

According to Young (1990), there are four activities that involved the speaking skill: (1) Present a prepared dialogue in front of the class; (2) Make an oral presentation or skit in front of the class; (3) Speak in front of the class; (4) Role play a situation spontaneously in front of the class" (p 547)

Like Young (1986), Phillips (1990, 1992) also attempted to assess the influence of anxiety on students' performance in an oral test, but went further than Young He not only carried out correlations between oral exam grades and language anxiety but also evaluated eight criteria pertaining to the oral exam, and tried to find out if aspects of language ability might be influencing poorer grades, by means of partial correlations He also conducted analyses of variance to discover if there were significant differences in mean oral exam grades in three anxiety groups (of low, of moderate, and of high anxiety) Finally, he conducted one-to-one interviews by using two research questions (1)What effect does anxiety have on students' oral exam performance as measured by the test scores and several performance variables related to accuracy and amount of comprehensible speech? (p.15-16) and (2) What do highly anxious students say about the experience of taking an oral exam in a foreign language? (p.16) to find out about highly anxious students' reactions to the oral exam

Horwitz and her colleagues carried out an investigation in two stages The first one was a videotaped individual interview in English about ordinary everyday topics such as

family, holidays, and hobbies After a week, the second stage took place in which students viewed the recordings and gave their reactions to their interviews in their mother-tongue

It was found that highly anxious students were reticent about discussing their interviews and often steered the conversation towards more general topics such as how they postponed assignments, and tended to avoid talking about their oral performance on the recording One highly competent, though very anxious, participant's comments reflected her unfeasible demands upon herself and her dissatisfaction with her performance, when she reiterated