Language Stress And Anxiety Among The English Language Learners

Abstract

Language learners usually express anxiety, apprehension and nervousness when learning a new language. Language anxiety can originate from learners’ own sense of ‘self’, their self-related cognitions, language learning difficulties, differences in learners’ and target language cultures, differences in social status of the speakers and interlocutors, and from the fear of losing self-identity. Consideration of language learners’ anxiety reactions by a language teacher is deemed highly important in order to assist them to achieve the intended performance goals in the target language(Tanveer, 2007). Language anxiety may also be a result as well as a cause of insufficient command of the target language (Sparks and Ganschow; cited in Horwitz, 2001: 118). It may be experienced due to linguistic difficulties L2/FL learners face in learning and using the target language. Within social contexts, language anxiety may be experienced due to extrinsic motivators (Schwartz, 1972; cited in Scovel, 1991: 16), such as different social and cultural environments, particularly the environments where L1 and L2/FL learning takes place. Using a qualitative semi-structured interview and focus-group discussion technique,this study tried to investigate the factors behind language anxiety among the Iranian language learners both within the classroom and in the social context, and has suggested a variety of strategies to cope with it. The findings suggested that language anxiety can originate from learners’ own sense of ‘self’, their selfrelated cognitions, language learning difficulties, differences in learners’ and target language cultures, differences in social status of the speakers and interlocutors, and from the fear of losing self-identity. Furthermore, considering the crucial role of teachers in second or foreign language pedagogy, a need was felt to investigate the beliefs and perceptions of language teachers about learning and teaching a second or a foreign language.