Foreign Language Anxiety

Language educators have long been in search of answers to account for the great difficulty faced by a number of students when learning a second language (L2). The researcher stated that attitude, motivation, anxiety, and beliefs are affective variable that could influence L2 learning. Out of these affective factors, anxiety has been given much attention; L2 learning has such a great potential to stimulate anxiety in the otherwise well-functioning individuals (Young, 1998). Therefore, the fundamental aim of this essay is to provide a clear understanding of language anxiety and to develop classroom procedures to alleviate anxiety.

Anxiety has been found to interfere with many types of learning and this would also apply to L2 learning. In some

Language anxiety is a distinct complex of self-perception, beliefs, feeling and behavior which arises in the situation that requires the use of L2 with which the individual is not fully proficient/confident (Mohammad & Wahid, 2015).

In addition to three distinct levels of anxiety; three components of foreign language anxiety have been identified: Communication apprehension; arises from leaners’ inability to adequately express himself/herself in L2, fear of negative social evaluation, and test anxiety (Horwitz, Horwitz, Cope, MacIntyre & Gardne, as cited in Brown, 2011).

Yet another important insight to be applied to our understanding of anxiety lies in the distinction between debilitative (harmful; dysphoric) and facilitative (helpful; euphoric) anxiety --- some apprehension--- over a task to be accomplished is a positive factor such as feeling of nervousness before giving an presentation or oral exam is, often a sign of facilitative (Alpert, Haber, Oxford, Spielmann & Radnofsky, as cited in Brown,

The effects of language anxiety can be explained with reference to the cognitive consequences of anxiety arousal (Eysenck & Schwarzer, as cited in Khan & Zafar, 2010). When an individual becomes anxious in language context, negative self-evaluation related to cognition begins to emerge, such as I’ll never be able to finish this, I am good for nothing, people will laugh at me, and I wish this was over.

High levels of anxiety have been shown to have several negative physiological effects such as impair cognitive functioning, disrupt memory, and lead to avoidance behavior, (Eysenck, as cited in Motgomery & Spalding, 2015). Similarly, Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope claimed that high anxiety may account for more academic failure than other reasons (as cited in Motgomery & Spalding, 2015). Furthermore, Gergesene observed that anxious leaners made more errors, overestimated the number of their errors, and correct more than the less anxious learner (as cited in Brown,