Abstract
The negative impact of anxiety on learning a second or foreign language has been demonstrated in a number of studies over the past few decades. It is important to investigate ways of reducing learner language anxiety as empirical studies have shown that language anxiety negatively affects language performances of learners. In this study, classroom intervention strategies for reducing language anxiety were implemented, and the effectiveness of the anxiety-reducing strategies was examined. The study was designed to ascertain: 1) which areas of language anxiety decrease due to intervention, 2) which strategies learners felt were the most effective in reducing language anxiety, and 3) how the learners perceived the anxiety-reducing strategies. Participants were two groups of students from different universities, consisting of experimental group ( N = 50) and control group ( N = 32). Questionnaire surveys were conducted before and after the intervention, with both the experimental and control groups. As a result, anxiety-reducing strategies were effective in reducing learner communication apprehension. Effective strategies for reducing language anxiety were found to be: making presentations in small groups instead of making presentations individually and doing pair work and group work in class. From the responses to the open-ended questionnaire, learner perceptions of the strategies were found to be generally positive.
Highlights
Foreign language anxiety is known as one of the affective factors which influence learners in foreign language classroom situations
Horwitz (2017) clearly emphasizes that the search for the advantages of language anxiety is a huge step backward. She insists that the idea of facilitative anxiety in language learning might be attractive to teachers when they find their students being unmotivated in classes, but this might be caused by the simple reason that that they are really anxious about language learning
The ANOVA shows statistically significant results for communication apprehension, with an F ratio of F (1, 80) = 4.375, p = .037, indicating that items related to communication
Summary
Foreign language anxiety is known as one of the affective factors which influence learners in foreign language classroom situations In recent years, this particular psychological construct has received more and more attention in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies (e.g., Alsowat, 2016; Alrabai, 2015; Gkonou, 2017; Horwitz, 2017). This particular psychological construct has received more and more attention in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) studies (e.g., Alsowat, 2016; Alrabai, 2015; Gkonou, 2017; Horwitz, 2017) This worldwide trend to investigate learners’ language anxiety seems to reveal the changing roles of teachers in foreign language classrooms. It seems that too much learner anxiety is a pity solution to problems in language
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