How does foreign language anxiety affect learners performance?

How does foreign language anxiety affect learners performance?

 

Anxiety is the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system(Phillips,1992). Numerous studies argue that irrespectively of low or high ability language students being analyzed, anxiety in second language learning does matter.  Although it generates promblems in various fields of language learning and test performance ,it affects learners oral performance in particular. On the basis the following three resources I am trying to give you a more specific explanation of what second language anxiety is and what specific speech characteristics it generates.

1.        Piniel, K., & Csizér, K. (2013). L2 motivation, anxiety and self-efficacy :The interrelationship of individual variables in the secondary school context. SSLLT, 3 (4), 523-550.

Individual differences are primary factors in the second language learning process and they significantly contribute to it’s success. Such personal characteristics are; motivation, self-efficacy, language aptitude, and language anxiety. There is systematic interaction between these ID variables.(Piniel,523)

First,  L2 motivation is to be examined and that will instantly indicate how it influences many of the other factors. Let me begin with the second language situation in Hungary which is of a very special kind. Hungarian educational institutions face numerous problems in relation with language teaching. Several schools fail to provide alternatives for L2, most often they only have one option and that is English. Teachers do not support students with enough motivation, learners are expected to be motivated from the very beginning. This situation is a very expressive sample for the cyclical process in the perceived language experience. (experience-> motivation->anxiety->  self-efficacy). We can differentiate between two contrasting notions of anxiety : facilitating (beneficial, enhances performance) with which higher level of self-efficacy can be associated and its counterpart debilitating anxiety (negative effect ,generates feeling of fear)that indicates low level of self-efficacy.

Many studies investigate the connection between motivation and anxiety in the language classroom context, from the perspectives of test-anxiety, negative evaluation as well as oral performance. Here we have to clarify a few terms in order to understand the whole picture. Appraisal theory: positive encouraging factor, elicitor of negative emotions, should be applied by teachers; Stressor: the experienced situation of stress that affects motivation and therefore performance likewise; Academic achievement: acting on the situation, ability of problem solving, the effort put in the L2 learning process (increases self efficacy). Motivation can be divided into two subgroups; it might be avoidance oriented( behaviour generated by the fear of possibility, object, etc.) negative experience, lowers self-efficacy, or approach oriented (behaviour motivated by a positive stimuli – possibility, event etc.) discrepancy between the current state and the desired state decreases and that means an enhanced level of self-efficacy. (Piniel, 543-546)

Therefore we can conclude that high levels of self-efficacy decreases language anxiety – conversely likewise.

Why I choose this study at first hand is because this is a very recent piece of research that was conducted in Hungary by two of the best professors of Applied Linguistics at our university. Therefore, it provides us with adequate findings about the apparent Hungarian classroom milieu . What I found mainly interesting and also corresponding to my research question is that there are many other central factors in L2 learning beside motivation and anxiety. In this summary I was focusing on these two and self-efficacy, as well as the relationship between these three in particular.

2.        Phillips, M., E. (1992) . The effects of language anxiety on students’ oral test performance and attitude. The modern language journal, 1 , 14-26.

The majority of second language students claim that they are mostly interested in developing their oral skills in the target language. The most problematic field influenced by anxiety though is communicative skills. (Phillips,14)

Some research focuses on the so called trait anxiety, in relation to which oral performance showed quite a stable tendency to be analyzed. Other studies - on the other hand – have focused on state anxiety that is a situation-specific anxiety. In other words, it is different from the former because it exhibits anxiety

only in certain situations. Irrespectively of what form of stress we investigate , studies always come to the result the shows positive outcome of little anxiety and debilitating affect of too much anxiety.

Very often only the most common variables are take into account when analyzing the progress of second language acquisition (e.g. age, gender, aptitude, motivation ,etc.) ; however, there are other numerous moderators to be considered ,too (e.g. competitiveness, risk-taking , personality types ,etc.) There have been several studies conducted in order to find out the representations of language anxiety in oral test performances. Significant trends have revealed in these researches, e.g. that students who had more stress said less at the exams and used less of independent clauses. Negative correlations were found between students’ performance and their feeling of comfort at the examination as well as between performance and their familiarity with the task types, i.e. although they were made feel comfortable during the test and were familiar with the exercises, requirements, too, they still were negatively influenced by the pressure. Such studies are most often qualitative  therefore we may as well highlight a couple of words that were mentioned by the interviewees,e.g. intimidated, panicky, nervous ,etc.

It may seem a proper explanation for second language oral performance  being different in each and every case but indeed anxiety is only one factor contributing to negative grades.

3.        Elaine, K., Horwitz, Michael, B., Horwitz, & Cope, J., (1986). Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety. The Modern Language Journal. 70 (2), pp.125-132.

Regarding second language oral performance we should definitely apply a psychological term that is specific anxiety reaction. It is supposed to differentiate people who are generally nervous from those who only react with a nervous manner when they are in a specific situation.  Anxiety in this respect is no different from any of its other kinds; it evokes psycho- physiological symptoms, negative responses ,leads to loss of motivation and avoidance behaviour. A related phenomenon should be highlighted at this point; overstudying. Many of those frustrated learners tend to spend much more time preparing for class but even so, they do poorly when they are in the stressful environment again. The opposite of this is the before mentioned loss of motivation, when students start skipping classes, postponing  homework and feeling anxious in evaluative situations. (Elaine, 127)

The results of studies that were conducted to reveal the effects of language anxiety demonstrate that students with debilitating frustration have to be identified and treated more sensitively since they feel constantly tested, under pressure and consider every language correction as failure.