Exploring EFL Students’ Perspectives on Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety: A Tertiary Study
Kanar Zirak Haseeb Chicho
English Language Teaching Department, Tishk International University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
Email: [email protected]
Published: February 22, 2023
Abstract
Anxiety is the subjective feeling of fear, hesitation, and nervousness with stimulation of the autonomic nervous system. It negatively affects language learning because anxiety has interfered with many types of learning. Anxiety also is one of the most highly assessed variables in psychology and education. Psychologists differentiate several types of anxiety. One of them is language anxiety, which is one of the significant areas of language learning and teaching. Language anxiety occurs while speaking a foreign language. It has consequences for learning the language.
This study examines EFL students’ perspectives on foreign language speaking anxiety at the Faculty of Education-Tishk International University. The study tends to answer the following questions: Are students anxious about speaking in class? If so, why do students have this feeling? When they feel uncomfortable? How does the teacher help them cope with language anxiety?
An online survey was designed to find out the reasons for anxiety about speaking in a foreign language. The survey was sent to the 100 Education Faculty students. The questionnaire consisted of four sections. Demographic questions were asked in the first segment. In the second phase, students were asked if they agreed or disagreed with twenty-two statements about language anxiety. Students were requested to rate how anxious they were throughout speaking class in the third section. The participants also were requested to select the instructor behaviors that helped to lower language anxiety in the final segment. Results of the analyses of data showed that speaking in a foreign language in front of the class is exclusively the source of anxiety. Furthermore, the instructor’s role in terms of being relaxed and positive during error correction can highly decrease language anxiety.
Keywords: Language Anxiety, Speaking Class, Psychology, Foreign Language, Language Teaching
DOI: 10.23918/vesal2023v23