English

Amr Abdullatif Yassin,Norizan Abdul Razak

doi:10.17576/3l-2017-2303-11

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between foreign language anxiety and the year of study among Yemeni university EFL learners. The data were collected from the English language students from years 1 to 4 of the Faculty of Arts, Ibb University, Yemen. The data were collected using Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLAS) which measures the level of anxiety in the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The data were analysed using SPSS version 22 and one-way Anova is used to determine if there is a significant difference in the level of anxiety between the students in the four years. The results revealed that second year students experienced the highest level of anxiety followed by third year, fourth year and the first year students experienced the least level of anxiety. However, no significance difference was found between the level of foreign language anxiety and the year of study. The study concluded that two other factors, the interference of the mother tongue and novelty effect, might have affected the relationship between language anxiety and year of study. Implications of the study are also discussed. Keywords: Foreign Language Anxiety; year of study; Yemeni university EFL learners; novelty effect; mother tongue interference

Highlights

The psychological factors affecting foreign language learning are still attracting the attention of the scholars and researchers (Brown 2007)
In order to find if there is a significant difference in the level of foreign language anxiety among Yemeni university EFL learners with respect to the year of study, the researchers calculated the means and standard deviations of the students of each year included in the samples
The students in second year might experience the highest level of anxiety since they come across subjects in linguistics and literature for the first time but the feeling of anxiety is reduced in third year and it is reduced more in the fourth year since the students have adapted and become familiar with linguistics and literature topics

Summary

Introduction

The psychological factors affecting foreign language learning are still attracting the attention of the scholars and researchers (Brown 2007). MacIntyre and Dewaele (2014) stated that language anxiety has an influence on language acquisition, retention, and production; foreign language anxiety has a negative influence on the whole process of language learning. This attracted many researchers to investigate this issue and its effect on the process of language learning (Aida 1994; Horwitz et al 1986, Horwitz & Young 1991, Ezzi 2012, Taha & Wong 2016, Kralova et al 2017).

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