Foreign Language Anxiety in the Classroom

1. Foreign Language Anxiety in the Classroom Tien-hui Yu余天蕙 Seton Hall University

2. Definition • Foreign language anxiety: a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process.

3. Sources of Anxiety • Speaking the target language in front of peers • Teacher-centered classroom • Fear of losing oneself • Making errors • …………

4. Three Types of Foreign Language Anxiety (Horwitz,1986) • (1) Communication apprehension • (2) Test anxiety • (3) Fear of negative evaluation

5. The Influence of Anxiety • Severe language learning anxiety causes interlocking problems. • Language anxiety is one of the best predictors of foreign language achievement.

6. A Case Study Instrument: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale ( Horwitz, 1986)

10. Results • Anxiety does exist in the Chinese language learning classroom. • Learners from different levels are influenced by anxieties. • Learners who suffered from one of the anxieties are affected by the other two anxieties simultaneously. • Learners who experienced higher anxiety levels had lower self-esteem and got lower grades, while less anxious learners had higher self-esteem and got higher grades.

11. Pedagogical Implications • Coping with the anxiety • Making the learning context less stressful

12. Coping with Anxiety • Workshop • Learning training

13. A Less Stressful Classroom • Reducing communication apprehension anxiety • Reducing fear of negative evaluation • Reducing test anxiety

14. Conclusion • No teacher can guarantee that a class will be anxiety-free; however, teachers should be aware of trying to minimize the anxiety in the classroom to strengthen language learning efficiency. • For further research, there is a need for empirical evidence concerning how effective anxiety reducing techniques are in second language learning classrooms.