Foreign language anxiety and self-disclosure in online university French classes

Abstract

This article presents a small-scale study of students with medium to high levels of foreign language anxiety (FLA) enrolled in synchronous, online French classes at an Australian university. We conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 10 such students, focusing specifically on their experience with speaking activities and their perceptions of questions requiring self-disclosure that are routinely asked in foreign language classes. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings reveal that students overwhelmingly prefer the physical classroom to the online environment, and that this is largely due to increased possibilities for easier interaction with fellow students. In addition, these students were all at ease with disclosing low-level personal information in class. This suggests that the social nature of language learning is a key feature of a positive second language (L2) learning experience. Second, all students had strategies in place to mitigate the negative effects of their FLA. These included not only preparation strategies (e.g. anticipating questions and preparing responses in advance) but also the use of technology (e.g. Google Translate and other online resources). We therefore suggest that low-level self-disclosure does not negatively impact students with moderate to high levels of FLA, and that technological tools provide useful scaffolds to support their learning and mitigate the negative effects of their FLA.