Language Learning Anxiety

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Confidently conversing in English as well as using the language to its maximum potential have and will always be a powerful advantage in being successful in the 21st century, highly globalized era. It is a prominent and observable reality that proficient English speakers have a clear advantage over those who are less proficient at using the language.
In the Philippines, English is a major part of the curriculum with it being the primary mode of instruction in most subjects. As a result, learning the language is imperative for academic success and like all learning areas, learning the language also incurs anxiety to its learners.
SLA anxiety among the BME and BFE major students of PNU-V has been observed by the researchers of this study. Considering …show more content…

Anxiety has been regarded as a powerful affective filter which if not addressed will be detrimental to the student’s language learning. It is evident that anxiety in the language or acquisition of the language may cause the student to lose self-confidence when conversing in the target language which may result to them feeling frustrated and to neglect acquiring the language altogether. According to Guiora (1983), learning a language itself is “a profoundly unsettling psychological proposition” because it threatens an individual’s self-concept and world view. It is very important to make it possible for students to better concentrate on the lesson, instead of focusing on their anxiety and fears (Bowen …show more content…

It is true that mastery of the language has no direct effect on their teaching performance as future teachers since the language has no direct affiliation with the lessons of their respective specialization, but mastering the language will contribute greatly with their developments professionally and academically. According to Krashen (1985), low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to 'raise ' the affective filter and form a 'mental block ' that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition. In other words, when the filter is 'up ' it impedes language acquisition. This study seeks to locate such affective filters in order to get to the root of their anxiety. Another part of the study will also consider the coping strategies that the students call on whenever they have to deal with their

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