Investigating Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety among the Kurdish EFL Students: A Case Study at a Public University (original) (raw)
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Abstract: This study aims at investigating foreign language anxiety among Kurdish and Psychology department students at faculty of Arts/ Soran University. This quantitative study was measured by foreign language anxiety classroom ( FLCAS) of Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B., & Cope, J. (1986). Psychology department participants were 37 students and Kurdish department participants were 33 students. The results indicated that all the students reported high level of anxiety, but the two groups are at different levels of that anxiety. The participants in the Psychology department reported a higher level of anxiety as compared to Kurdish participants which is lower. Considering the results toward gender differences in language anxiety; girls are more anxious than boys especially the younger ones. Considering the importance of language anxiety in the process of language learning, some recommendations are presented for further studies.
This study investigated the level, major causes, determining factors of foreign language speaking anxiety and students' perceptions of it in a Turkish EFL context. Pre-intermediate students (N=383) of an English preparatory program at a state university participated in the study. The data regarding the level of EFL speaking anxiety were collected through a questionnaire, and then, randomly selected participants (N=19) were interviewed to get in-depth data on speaking anxiety. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis. Although the results of the quantitative data revealed that students experienced a low level of EFL speaking anxiety, the quantitative data demonstrated that most of the students perceive speaking skill as an anxiety provoking factor. It was also found that pronunciation, immediate questions, fears of making mistakes and negative evaluation are the major causes of EFL speaking anxiety. Finally, the present study puts forward that foreign language speaking anxiety is a separate phenomenon with its own sources, aspects, variables and effects on learners.
Journal of University of Human Development
The aim of this study was to investigate the level of speaking anxiety in the interlanguage of Kurdish EFL students at the University of Human Development (UHD), to find out which component of the participants’ interlanguage (phonology, grammar and meaning) contributes more to speaking anxiety, to assess the effect of gender and level of study on the participants’ speaking anxiety, and to examine the correlation between the three components of the participants’ interlanguage as far as speaking anxiety is concerned. The study utilized a quantitative method represented by a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 18 items responded to by 106 Kurdish university EFL students from three semesters at UHD. The statistical analyses of the collected data revealed that the participants had a low to moderate level of speaking anxiety, meaning was the most contributing component of the participants’ interlanguage to speaking anxiety, gender and level of study exhibited no significant i...
Speaking anxiety among Turkish EFL learners: The case at a state university
Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 2014
This study investigated the level, major causes, determining factors of foreign language speaking anxiety and students' perceptions of it in a Turkish EFL context. Pre-intermediate students (N=383) of an English preparatory program at a state university participated in the study. The data regarding the level of EFL speaking anxiety were collected through a questionnaire, and then, randomly selected participants (N=19) were interviewed to get in-depth data on speaking anxiety. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis. Although the results of the quantitative data revealed that students experienced a low level of EFL speaking anxiety, the quantitative data demonstrated that most of the students perceive speaking skill as an anxiety provoking factor. It was also found that pronunciation, immediate questions, fears of making mistakes and negative evaluation are the major causes of EFL speaking anxiety. Finally, the present study puts forward that foreign language speaking anxiety is a separate phenomenon with its own sources, aspects, variables and effects on learners.
Examining EFL students' foreign language speaking anxiety: The case at a Turkish state university
The present study examines EFL students' Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety (FLSA) and its possible reasons as well as some solutions to it. The participants were 147 Turkish students at the English preparatory program of a state university. A questionnaire was administered to the students from each proficiency level to explore their FLSA. The findings revealed that EFL students experience a moderate level of FLSA. Furthermore, female students seem to be highly anxious while speaking. Another striking point is that students' FLSA increases when communicating with a native speaker compared to with class members. As to the proficiency level of the students, FLSA does not seem to rest upon this aspect. This study concludes that encouraging EFL learners to participate in authentic contexts such as study abroad programs and addressing FLSA by appealing to both genders could be more contributory to language development and communicative competence of the learners.
The present study is an attempt to investigate the status of the EFL learner's interlanguage system as dealt with foreign language (FL) speaking anxiety in the classroom. The objective of the study is first to specifically determine the extent to which Iranian EFL learners attribute their FL speaking anxiety to the constituents of their interlanguage system and second to indicate the related gender and level-based differences among the participants. To this end, the researcher divided the general notion of interlanguage system into its three main researchable constituents: interlanguage phonology, interlanguage grammar, and 'interlanguage meaning system' and then attempted to design a self-reporting questionnaire with a five Likert-type scale mainly on the basis of FLCAS developed by Horwitz, et. al. (1986). After analyzing the results, the findings indicated that the participants were more likely to attribute their most FL speaking anxiety experienced in the classroom to their interlanguage meaning system as compare with the other two subsets of their interlanguage system. In terms of the gender differences, the results suggested that the female participants were found to be more prone to experiencing FL speaking anxiety within the framework of their interlanguage system. With respect to level differences, the results demonstrated that gaining more FL knowledge may not necessarily lead to a substantial reduction in experiencing FL speaking anxiety, since more proficient participants were more subject to the anxiety-provoking factors within their interlanguage system than less proficient participants.
The Efl Students’ Perception of Their Foreign Language Anxiety in Speaking Class
Jurnal Wahana Pendidikan, 2020
ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is aimed at investigating the factors that influence foreign language anxiety among the students in a speaking class, and how they perceive about overcoming foreign language anxiety. The present study used a questionnaire to find out the factors that influenced students’ foreign language anxiety. An interview was conducted in order to find out the students’ perception of their foreign language anxiety. It was found that students felt anxious when they were unable to comprehend communication in class (62.5%). Test and speaking in front of class became one of the factors that caused students to experienced anxiety (43%). On the other hand, fear of receiving bad comments from the teacher and the other students was the third factor that students experienced anxiety (61.8%). Through the semi-structured interviews, it showed that students reduced the anxiety by practicing the pronunciation, and memorizing the vocabulary. Besides, the teacher played a role...
FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKING ANXIETY AND ANXIETY COPING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY TURKISH EFL LEARNERS
Anxiety plays a vital importance in language learning and it can affect language learning process especially language learners' productive skills. Some studies on speaking anxiety have indicated that there is a strong relationship between anxiety and success in speaking in foreign language classrooms and speaking has been recognized as one of the most anxiety-provoking skill. Learners of foreign language use some coping strategies to overcome this anxiety. For this purpose, this study was designed to investigate the levels of speaking anxiety of 232 Turkish EFL learners (124 females and 108 males) at tertiary level and the strategies they are using to cope with the English speaking anxiety. Two scales (Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale and Anxiety Coping Strategies Scale) were used to gather data. The findings revealed that the majority of Turkish EFL learners, experienced foreign language speaking anxiety in varying degrees and many of them also applied particular strategies to overcome their foreign language speaking anxiety. Based on the results of the study the researchers made some recommendations.
Jurnal Ilmiah Didaktika: Media Ilmiah Pendidikan dan Pengajaran, 2019
Language anxiety becomes an important area on language teaching and learning. It has been a common issue in the EFL context and had a profound consequence in language teaching. Furthermore, a feeling of anxiety has been experienced by a number of foreign language learners in their English language classroom. T herefore, the objective of this research was to investigate some factors influenced the students’ anxiety and also to find out kinds of anxiety experienced by them. The data were collected through FLCAS (Foreign language Classroom Anxiety Scale) from 30 English Department students of IAIN Lhokseumawe and 25 students of Al Muslim University and semi-structured interviews with 6 students as research’s participant. The data were analyzed descriptively to answer research questions. The findings indicated that students of IAIN Lhokseumawe had a higher level of anxiety compared with students of Al Muslim University. In addition, some factors causing students’ anxiety were lack of me...
The Sources of Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety of Iranian English Language Learners
Foreign language learning anxiety is one of the affective factors which influence language learning negatively. It has several sources and different types. The present study aimed at investigating the sources of foreign language speaking anxiety of Iranian EFL learners. To do so, 154 EFL learners participated in the study. They were required to fill out a foreign language anxiety questionnaire which was developed based on the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986). The results of the study indicated that " fear of making mistakes " , " fear of negative evaluation " , and " lack of vocabulary knowledge " were the main factors which caused anxiety among students. Some strategies are recommended for the students to use in order to cope with the anxiety-provoking factors.