Language anxiety: Differentiating writing and speaking components (original) (raw)
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LANGUAGE ANXIETY IN SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING: IS IT REALLY A STUMBLING BLOCK
This study investigates how foreign language anxiety is related to second language writing anxiety among second language (L2) English learners in Korea and how English writing anxiety affects second language writing performance. It also investigates possible sources of anxiety from the learners' perspective, which should provide better understanding of possible obstacles that L2 learners may face during language learning. The data came from two survey instruments, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS; Horwitz, and the English Writing Anxiety Scale (EWAS; Lee, 2005), as well as a background questionnaire. The surveys were administered to an intact class of 26 junior high school students of English as a foreign language, where the teacher had implemented an innovative writing portfolio assignment. The study's results indicate that there is a significant positive correlation between the FLCAS and the EWAS. There was not a significant correlation between EWAS and writing performance as observed in the student portfolios, but students with high EWAS scores did tend to show poor performance on the writing portfolio. Several causes of anxiety in the classroom from the students' point of view were uncovered. The research findings suggest that instructors should seek more effective ways to ease the anxiety that students might feel when learning and writing English so as to support successful language learning experiences.
Factors associated with foreign language writing anxiety
This study investigated the relationships among students' perceptions of their second language (L2) writing anxiety and various learner dgerences and among L2 writing anxiety and other forms of language anxiety. Four language anxiety scales and a background information questionnaire were used to collect data. Regression analysis results indicated that perceived J 2 writing competence predicts L2 writing anxiety better than L2 writing achievement does. Correlation analysis results suggested that L2 writing anxiety is distinct from L1 writing anxiety. ANOVA results demonstrated that female students in this study reported experiencing significantly higher levels of L2 writing anxiety than male students. No significant dgerence in reported anxiety level was found among freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, although L2 writing anxiety appeared to increase linearly with increased time of study. The findings suggest that, for foreign language teachers, fostering students' positive and realistic perception of their writing competence is as important as developing students' writing skills. Furthermore, the results indicate a needfor further research on the development of L2 writing anxiety and the relationship between L1 and L2 writing anxiety.
Second-language learners’ writing anxiety: Types, causes, and teachers’ perceptions
2017
The American University in Cairo Second-language Learners' Writing Anxiety and Teachers' Awareness Under the Supervision of Dr. Amira Agameya The purpose of the present study was to investigate the causes and most common types of second-language writing anxiety among students taking an intensive English course in the English Language Institute (ELI) at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Towards this end, the study examined the problem from both the learners' and teachers' perspective in order to provide the teachers with the issues they could consider to help their learners feel less anxious about their writing. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this exploratory study. A convenience sample of 51 Egyptian ESL learners enrolled in the Intensive English Program (IEP) in the ELI was chosen to participate in the study. The researcher gave them a questionnaire adapted from the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) developed by Zhang (2011) in order to identify the causes and most common types of writing anxiety among them. To investigate the teachers' perspectives of L2 writing anxiety, interviews with six teachers in the IEP with varying years of teaching experience were conducted. The results of the quantitative data, using descriptive statistics, show that the most common types of L2 writing anxiety among the students were Somatic Anxiety (SA) and Cognitive Anxiety (CA). On the other hand, a very small percentage of the students suffered from Avoidance Anxiety (AA). The reason why their level of SA and CA were higher is because most of their causes of L2 writing anxiety were associated more with physiological and psychological effects resulting from their anxiety experience. The teachers' answers to the interview questions corresponded with the students' responses to the questionnaire items. They reported that they notice and observe symptoms related to L2 writing anxiety very similar to those indicated by the students. activity, and other hereditary bases of different personality characteristics (Buss, 1988). Another factor that might play a major role in developing communication apprehension is the way one has been reinforced and punished when communicating from early childhood. An individual who receives consistent punishments and negative reactions towards communication may easily become apprehensive, and therefore finds staying quiet is more rewarding than talking. In addition to reinforcement and punishment, the inconsistency of punishments, rewards, and responses for completing a task of engaging in a given activity can lead to behavioral withdrawal (McCroskey, 1987). Communication skills acquisition from early childhood also plays a central role in the development of communication apprehension. Children who do not acquire good communication skills tend to be more apprehensive than those who receive a lot of experience in communication. Lastly, appropriate models of communication are tied closely to communication apprehension. Similar to communication skills acquisition, adequate communication models do affect children's communication apprehension. Children who have inadequate communication models tend to be more apprehensive than those who are exposed to adequate models. For instance, a child who has parents with high levels of Cognitive Anxiety (CA) has an increased risk of developing the same anxiety disorder, as he or she will try to emulate their communication behavior after observing them (McCroskey, 1984). 1.4 Anxiety and Foreign Language Learning Research that aimed to explore the relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning has resulted in mixed and confusing results. Some studies found that there is a negative correlation between anxiety and language proficiency. For example, in their study of Englishspeaking French immersion children, Swain and Burnaby (1976) found that anxiety negatively affected the children's language proficiency level. However, they did not find any other
A measure of second language writing anxiety: Scale development and preliminary validation
Evidence has been accumulating that shows the promise of multidimensional conceptualizations of anxiety in investigating the effects of anxiety on different aspects of human behavior and intellectual performance. In view of the lack of an L2 writing anxiety scale explicitly developed from a multidimensional perspective, this study aims to develop and evaluate a self-report L2 writing anxiety measure that conforms to a three-dimensional conceptualization of anxiety. Sixty-five EFL learners' reports of L2 writing anxiety were drawn upon to generate an initial pool of scale items. A pilot test was conducted on the initial pool of items to help establish a preliminary version of L2 writing anxiety scale for further refinement and evaluation in the formal study. A sample of 421 EFL majors enrolled in seven different colleges in Taiwan participated in the formal study. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to determine the final make-up of the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) that consists of three subscales: Somatic Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety, and Avoidance Behavior. In addition to reliability coefficients, the validity of the SLWAI total scale and subscales was assessed by means of correlation and factor analysis. The results suggest that both the total scale and the individual subscales of the SLWAI have good reliability and adequate validity. For the past three decades, a great body of research has been devoted to examine the role of anxiety in second language (L2) 1 learning. However, as shown in Scovel's (1978) review of the literature then available, early studies on anxiety and L2 learning produced
SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING ANXIETY: CAUSE OR EFFECT
Writing is a demanding activity especially for learners of a second / foreign language and yet it is a skill that they have to master in order to do well in content courses especially at the tertiary level of education. Studies have shown that students' writing performance is related to anxiety. What is uncertain is whether anxiety is the cause or the consequence of poor writing performance. This study seeks to find how anxiety is related to performance using the deficit hypothesis as its guiding principle. The findings show that the subjects in this study suffered anxiety as a result of their lack of writing skills, and that the better students experienced less anxiety than the weaker ones.
Foreign Language Anxiety in Student’s Speaking and Writing Skills
Journal of English Language Teaching and Literature (JELTL), 2020
The objective of this research was on the level of Foreign Language Anxiety that experienced by students. In this research, the researcher was use the Qualitative research as the method in implementing case study. The sources of data were 30 students of the second semester of Banten Jaya University. For collecting data that used in this study include classroom observation, questionnaires and interview. The questionnaire used to obtain specific information data was gathered from the participants by FLCAS of Horwitz et all (1986). From the result of FLCAS questionnaire, there were 10 students who felt very anxious with percentage 33.33%, 8 students felt anxious with the percentage 26.67%, 8 students felt mildly anxious with the percentage 26.67%, 4 students felt relaxed with the percentage 13.33% and there was no student who felt very relaxed. Then, the result of WAT questionnaire were 7 students felt very anxious with percentage 23.33%, 8 students felt anxious with the percentage 26....
Second Language Writing Anxiety of Indonesian EFL Students
Lingua Cultura, 2018
This research reported the types, as well as the causal factors of writing anxiety experienced by 44 volunteered Indonesian student writers from the first and second year of college. This research applied two questionnaires to get descriptions of types and causal factors of writing anxiety; Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) and Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI), and interview. The findings show that cognitive anxiety is found to be the most experienced type of writing anxiety among both students’ levels. There is a slight difference in the result of CWAI questionnaire in that three major causal factors of freshmen writing anxiety are language difficulties, time pressure, and insufficient writing practice. Meanwhile, the causal factors of sophomores are insufficient writing practice, language difficulties, and insufficient writing technique. These suggest that classroom instructions need to gear on improving students’ linguistic capabilities and writing techn...
Anxiety in Second Language in Relation to Students’ Speaking Performance
Sprin Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Language anxiety is thought to hinder language learning, and if the learners are truly anxious in class, they are probably not fully engaged, if at all. With the help of the Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) and a free-speaking exercise, this study intends to ascertain the association between language anxiety and speaking performance among undergraduate and graduate students. Frequency count, percent, mean, and Kruskal Wallis were used as statistical techniques to total, tabulate, and further analyze and interpret scores. An extensive, unstructured phenomenological interview with the students was undertaken to ascertain the causes of their language anxiety, and the thematic analysis was carried out using Giorgi's phenomenological method. Students did less satisfactorily in speaking performances and were found to be moderately worried. Language anxiety and speaking abilities, particularly in vocabulary and comprehension, are significantly correlated. This is ascribe...
Preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of a foreign language anxiety scale
Tesol Quarterly, 1986
The contributions to this issue of the TESOL Quarterly range from an account of the development of the English language teaching profession over the past two decades to discussions of specific issues in curriculum development, program evaluation, the assessment of writing ability in English as a second language, and teachers' attitudes toward varieties of English and Spanish. In addition, readers will find reports of research on second language reading strategies, on the generation of input from agepeers by children acquiring English as a second language, and on the nature of academic writing tasks which ESL learners face in undergraduate and graduate degree work in the United States.
Language proficiency differences in second language learning anxiety
In general, the objective of learning English language in Malaysian education system is to ensure the students can use English in their daily basis, to further study and for the workplace. The main purpose of English course in Polytechnics is to ensure the students are able to communicate effectively and confidently. Therefore, the students should be able to understand the language and use it with confident in their daily lives and for their future employment. However, most of the students are reluctant to communicate in English and many of them prefer to withdraw from participating in any English language activities. The reason for this issue might be due to the feeling of anxiety in learning the second language. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the language proficiency differences between above average and below average students with respect to language learning anxiety. There were 96 semester three students from Civil Engineering Department, Politeknik Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin participated in this study. SPSS version 22 has been used to analyses collected data consists of a 33 item questionnaire of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). The t-test has been used to determine if there was a significant difference between above average and below average students in regard of language learning anxiety. The study revealed that below average students were more anxious than above average students for all types of anxiety. However, t-test demonstrated that there was no significant difference between language learning anxiety in regard of students' level of proficiency. Thus, several implications have been suggested in this study to help the below average students to cater language learning anxiety. One of the examples is by conducting an English Camp for the targeted students serves as an effective method to cope language learning anxiety among below average students.