The effects of Foreign Classroom Anxiety and the use of Language Learning Strategies in Language Proficiency

Introduction

Can the effective use of language learning strategies help reduce Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety and foster language proficiency? The aim of this study is to identify what the major sources of foreign language anxiety are and the correlation between those results and the use English as a foreign language proficiency. The importance of this research lies on the reality that I, as EFL teacher, encounter everyday in my own classrooms when students seem to fail to engage in meaningful, fluent and accurate use of language, mainly due to the fact that their level of anxiety has risen to the level of creating mental blockages that refrain them from being engaged in interactions. I want to investigate if, by training students in the use of effective learning skills, students can decrease their levels of anxiety and perform better in the language classroom.

Review of Literature

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety

EFL teachers have for sure faced the situation in which students in their class claim to have a mental block against learning a foreign language, but those students are normally average or above average in other subjects. Why would this then happen? One of the reasons might be that they feel anxiety. This anxiety prevents them from successfully perform or interact in the foreign language classroom. Anxiety is defined in terms of the subjective

feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system (Spielberger, 1983). Anxiety plays an

important element when learning a foreign language, as it is a major obstacle to overcome (Horwitz, 1983).

Many studies have been carried out in the field of identifying the role anxiety plays hindering or fostering language learning. Horwitz (2010) enumerates 44 research milestones in the study of foreign language classroom anxiety. Interestingly enough, she mentions Scovels (1978) research as the turning point for the subject, as his main conclusion is that the inconsistency in the results in early anxiety studies derives from imprecision in the conceptualization and measurement of anxiety. I, myself, consider that Elaine Horwitz takes on Socvels assumption and develops the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) which becomes the standard to measure this trait. Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) are often credited with introducing the construct of FLA (Foreign Language Anxiety) as a situation specific anxiety and their scale, as the standard measure of language anxiety.

Language Learning Strategies Learning strategies are behaviors or thoughts that a learner engages in during learning that are intended to influence the learners encoding process (Weinstein & Mayer, 1986). It can be assumed that most learners use strategies in order to manage their learning, however, the extent, quantity and efficacy are still challenged in many contexts. More directly, for L2 learning, learning strategies are defined as specific actions, behaviors, steps or techniques [] used by students to enhance their own learning (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). There are many authors and studies that argue for the inclusion and the importance of learning strategies as they help build learner autonomy, which requires the learner to take conscious control of his or her own learning processes (Hsiao & Oxford, 2002).

Also, those strategies used by successful students are closely related to proficiency of achievement. There are some studies that suggest that there is a strong link between the use of language learning strategies and effective or good learners (Naima, Frolich, & Todesco, 1975); and its moved towards

making this link explicit and quantitative as they have underscored that relationship with measurable features (Bedell & Oxford, 1996; Dreyer & Oxford, 1996; among others). The above, confirms the importance of taking into account not only the use but the opportunities created in the classroom and the training students receive in the proper use of language learning strategies, to develop acquisition.

In my own context, the results or outcomes in language are the particular interest as they circumscribe the sustainability of the institution I work for. Therefore, this study aims to find the plausible link between the use of language learning strategies by different-type of anxious students and attempts to discover if there is an overt relationship in them seeking to find the pedagogical and methodological implications of this connection, as in the review of literature conducted, no explicit study has focused their efforts to discover them, if any.

Research Questions

1.

What are the main causes of anxiety students at A1, A2, B1 and B2 proficiency level manifest when learning a foreign language?

2. What is the relationship between the different causes of anxiety and the language learning strategies students, at each one of the proficiency levels, use?

3. Can identifying such relationships lead to methodological and pedagogical changes in the classroom, so that, acquisition is fostered?

Methodology

The study has the features of action research as it is context-specific oriented and seeks to find particular implications in the teaching methodology teachers apply in the light of the results drawn from it.

The participants.

The participants of the study are a students of the Bi-national Center Colombo Americano in Pereira, Colombia, South America. The Bi-national Center offers EFL courses to people between ages 15 to 80. In average, the participants for this study are in the age range of 15-26. Most of them have not lived in an English speaking country and their only environment to interact or have contact with English is at the Colombo. They will be divided into proficiency levels ranging from A1 to B2 according to the competences stated in the Common European Framework of Reference for Language Teaching, Learning and Assessment (CEFR).

Research Design: Groups

Students will be grouped according to their CEFR level into A1, A2, B1 and B2 according to the CEFR. There will be a pre-data collection stage in which students will be explained that they are going to be asked to complete a couple of surveys, for which there are not right or wrong answers. There will be another proficiency test and their effort to answer each question correctly is important for the purpose of the research. They will be asked to answer as honest as possible as their answers will not be disclosed to the public; furthermore, the surveys are anonymous and only general data such as age, academic and working background, and previous language learning

experiences will be taken into account.

Data collection instruments

There will be three instruments to be carried out for research purposes and according to the grouping of the subjects:

Language Proficiency:

Students will take the OOET (Oxford Online English Test) by Oxford University Press. The test is administered online and its an adaptive one, it means that the question student answers sets the level of difficulty for the next

one. The OOET evaluates the skills of reading, listening, writing and grammar and its results are correlated to the CEFRs levels (A1, A2, B1, B2)

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety will be measured by Horwitzs Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. The survey has 33 items and categorizes the main areas that cause students anxiety into (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986): Communication apprehension: it is defined as a type of shyness characterized by fear or anxiety about communicating with people. Some common manifestations of anxiety due to communication apprehension are, difficulty in speaking in groups or dyads or in public (stage fright), or in listening to or learning a spoken message (receiver anxiety). Test anxiety: this refers to a type of performance anxiety stemming from fear of failure. Fear of negative evaluation: defined as apprehension about others evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively.

The FLCAS is to be administered in L1 as it addresses psychological and intrapersonal issues that require fully understanding of the question. Each typeitem has answers in the typical five-level Likert scale (from Strongly disagree to Strongly Agree)

Language Learning Strategies

In order to measure the language learning strategies activity, the S.I.L.L (Strategy Inventory for Language Learning) will be used. The S.I.L.L. (Oxford, 1986) is a strategy questionnaire developed to identify the types of language learning strategies language learners use and its dived into metacognitive, cognitive, social, affective, memory-related and compensatory, and requires the subjects to rate, on a scale from one to five, and the frequency with which they

use each strategy listed. It is the most widely strategy questionnaires currently available.

used

and comprehensive

Data Collection Procedures

For data collection procedures, each one of the students will be asked to complete the three instruments in different days to avoid overwhelming them with administering the three at the same time and data could be tainted because of personal factors. Once data is collected, statistical treatment is carried out mainly with the application of the Pearsons correlation coefficient, which aims to establish the correlation between the following variables:

Independent Variables: FLCAS and S.I.L.L. Dependent Variable: English proficiency (OOET)

Expected results and contributions

It is expected that, by finding the links and relationships between the variables, the following areas of teaching English can be improved:

Teacher Training: defining teacher training programs that address the importance of taking into account elements such as training learners to use language learning strategies effectively and how to deal with anxious and non-anxious students.

Methodological adjustments in tasks designing: teachers can be provided with a framework to design language tasks that include a consistent and coherent use of language learning strategies, as well as environments that foster interaction in a low-stress classroom.

Bibliography

Bedell, D., & Oxford, R. L. (1996). Cross-cultural comparisons of language learning strategies in the People's Republic of China and other countries. In R.

L. Oxford (Ed.), Language learning strategies around the world: Cross-cultural perspectives (Tech. Rep. No. 13, pp. 47-60). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Dreyer, C., & Oxford, R. L. (1996). Learning strategies and other predictors of ESL proficiency among Afrikaans speakers in South Africa. In R. L. Oxford (Ed.), Language learning strategies around the world: Cross-cultural

perspectives (Tech. Rep. No. 13, pp. 61-74). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press

Horwitz, E. (1983) "Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale," unpubl. manuscript, Univ. of Texas, Austin. Horwitz, E. (2010), Research Timeline: Foreign and second language anxiety, Cambridge Journals. Cambridge University Press. University of Texas, Austin.

Horwitz, E, Horwitz, M, & Cope, J. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal 70.2, 125132.

Naiman, N., Fr6hlich, M., & Todesco, A. (1975). The good second language learner. TESL Talk, 6, 58-76

Scarcella, R. C., & Oxford, R. L. (1992). The tapestry of language learning: The individual in the communicative classroom. Boston: Heinle.

Scovel, T. (1978) "The Effect of Affect; A Review of the Anxiety Literature," Language Learning, 28, p. 132.

Weinstein, C. E., & Mayer, R. E. (1986). The teaching of learning strategies. In M. Wittrock (Ed.), Hand- book of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 315-327). New York: Macmillan