Inquiry II Seminar

Inquiry Question: What are the main sources of anxiety in the foreign language classroom, and how do we alleviate them?

Commonly misunderstood as a lack of effort and enthusiasm towards subject material, “I don’t want to do this!” is a common feeling and response that teachers encounter during class activities. We often misperceive that as poor work ethics on the student’s part, when actually we are overlooking the fact that they may be suffering from performance anxiety. As future foreign language teachers, a major concern of ours is the anxiety, especially in listening and speaking, felt by students in foreign language classrooms. Not only are students learning a new language, but they are learning how to learn it in an unfamiliar linguistic context. This anxiety can hinder students from fully realizing their educational potential, because it affects their confidence, motivation, and emotional well-being.

This is also a prevalent issue among language arts teacher as well, seeing that the amount of English as a Second Language learners is increasing in mainstream language arts classes. It has reached a stage where language arts teachers are no longer able to teach content and expect all learners to respond to it in similar ways. There is a growing need to understand the diverse backgrounds of learners and adapt lessons to make it as beneficial as possible for all students. Foreign language teachers have to address these issues through first tackling anxiety in different ways. While we recognize that periodic bouts of anxiety are at least, to some extent, a part of the human condition, and therefore appearing in all content classrooms, there are some unique characteristics of anxiety in the foreign language classroom that may exaggerate its consequences and make it worthy of our careful consideration.  In the foreign language classroom, all students are generally on equal ground in terms of their not yet fully developed grasp of and ability in the target language.  While anxiety in other content classrooms may result from social insecurities, lack of preparation, or still developing English skills, every attempt at communication in the foreign language classroom is a potential trigger to awaken existing anxieties or create new ones.

In order to attain a deeper understanding of this issue, we chose to read a variety of scholarly articles that included teaching methodologies pertaining to anxiety in the foreign language context. We encountered difficulty in trying to distinguish anxiety from foreign language learning from anxiety faced in other subject areas. That remains as one of our main goals of inquiry, as we believe that anxiety in a foreign language classroom can be quite distinct. While our research did not identify specific, but potential, causes of these anxieties, we were able to identify common symptoms. That led us to look at the transition from memorization-focused and grammar-drilling teaching approaches to a communicative one, where the ability to communicate naturally is the goal. Learning key grammar and concepts in isolation are not proven to be most beneficial for the language learner. We also looked at natural approaches to teaching which looks at the balance of the target language (TL) and first language (L1) in the classroom, an ongoing highly contested debate. However, assessment and error correction remain as two of the biggest issues that have an immense impact on anxiety. We looked specifically at self-assessment, as well as the implications of error-correction for teachers and students. Lastly, we found strategies that promote motivation to be most promising in overcoming barriers to realizing optimal outcomes in the foreign language classroom.

Our research has led us to many interesting findings concerning its causes, the types of anxiety, approaches to teaching, assessment, error correction, and motivation, in the foreign language classroom. Paralleling the increasing interest towards learning foreign languages is the increase in attention and research on foreign language learners’ beliefs, concerns, and motivation levels in the classroom. After extensively reviewing literature on anxiety in language learning, Young concludes that the six main sources of language learning anxiety are: personal and interpersonal anxieties, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language teaching, instructor-learner interactions, classroom procedures, and language testing (427). Those sources basically arise from major issues concerning students’ self-esteem, social anxiety, misconceptions about the definition of being fluent in a language, instructors’ misperception of their own roles, the way errors are corrected, and problematic evaluative situations.

More specifically, there are three main types of anxieties in the foreign language classroom: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation (Horwitz et. al 127). In other words, students are hesitant and even embarrassed to communicate in the target language, fear failure on tests, and dread being viewed negatively by peers and teachers. Although these feelings are present in all subject areas, the anxiety felt in foreign language classrooms are distinct because language learning essentially “threatens an individual’s self-concept and worldview” in the sense that students are essentially put in an unfamiliar space where they are not able to communicate freely (Horwitz et. al 125). These anxieties may be triggered frequently in the foreign language classroom. At the core of foreign language instruction is creating frequent meaningful opportunities for communication in the target language. While crucial for growth and development in the target language, these communication activities threaten those who experience communication anxiety. Next, fear of failure on tests could be experienced in most content classrooms; however, foreign language classrooms may exacerbate this anxiety. Studying a language usually involves regular tests, quizzes, and presentations where development in language skills such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening, and comprehension are assessed. Notably, an oral test creates a situation where both communication apprehension and fear of failure on tests may be induced. An anxiety double whammy! Fear of negative evaluation is experienced when students compare themselves with their peers. School classrooms are complicated social environments where students thrive on fitting-in and do their best to protect that desired status. In the foreign language classroom target language skill commonly develops at different rates from student to student and completing communication activities with a classmate of a perceived different level can be anxiety inducing. If the partner is of a higher level, the student may be fearful of revealing his or her own inferior ability, especially when the exchange is with the teacher, who is the most fluent target language user in the classroom. Conversely, if a student is more skilled than their partner they might intentionally diminish their own ability to preserve their preferred fitting-in status within the class. While the potential hazards of the foreign language classroom are numerous, making an effort to understand their causes creates a base from which we can begin to build strategies to conquer these anxieties that impede optimal educational outcomes.

Foreign language teaching is slowly transitioning from drills and memorization-centered classrooms from the 1950’s and 60’s to communicative classrooms, where the ability to communicate successfully is valued over the ability to communicate perfectly. This is referred to as the “Natural Approach” to teaching foreign languages, where the goal is to have students eventually become able to communicate with native speakers of a given language, an objective Terrell argues that cannot be achieved through grammar-translation and audio-lingual methods of teaching (121). Grammar-translation and audio-lingual methods help students to prepare for set conversations and grammar construction, but when faced with a native speaker, those skills cannot be directly applied and hence not always incredibly beneficial. However, those methods would be useful for a beginner’s class, in terms of enabling them to find patterns in the language. The natural approach would definitely be more advantageous to the student in the long run. Terrell outlines three main principles to the approach: classroom activities should foster acquisition; errors should not be corrected directly; and students should be given the choice to respond in either the target language, native language, or a mixture of the two (121). Although these appear to be useful considerations, the extent to which error correction should take place, as well as the balance between target language and native language in the classroom, are still factors that vary depending on the level of students as well as class dynamics.

One main topic of debate with respect to the foreign language classroom has been the use of the native language (L1) versus the target language (TL). In their article, Littlewood and Yu consider specifically how the foreign language instructor should balance their use of the L1 and TL. Traditional academic theories regularly proposes that the TL should be used exclusively in the classroom with total exclusion of the L1. Some motivation for these theories include preservation of TL opportunities that would not be available outside of the language classroom and removal of language ‘crutches’ which would not be available in authentic environments.  The article reveals that total exclusion of the L1 commonly leads to difficult communications barriers that impede progress. In the interest of reducing such barriers, limited and carefully selected usage of the L1 is supported. This may be direct usage when employed in teaching techniques such as drilling, or, indirect usage when used to communicate information such as instructions to the students. They key point is that usage of L1, when done carefully and strategically, has benefits in the foreign language classroom.

Studies focusing on correction strategies have provided some valuable insights with applications in the foreign language classroom. There is no doubt that error correction should occur in the foreign language classroom as it indicates that students are making progress, but it is important that they are done in moderation so that it ultimately creates an environment where students feel encouraged rather than discouraged from speaking. Students will become more engaged when language learning becomes more humanistic rather than mechanic. It is also incredibly useful for teachers as error correction provides feedback in terms of the effectiveness of teaching materials and techniques. In other words, teachers should focus on having students learn from errors instead of simply preventing them from occurring in the first place.

Error correction should be done if it instills a feeling of success in the students by enabling them to discover language limitations (Hendrickson 389). According to Hendrickson, errors are usually split into two categories, global and local (390). Global errors refer to those that impair communication and cause the listener to completely misunderstand the message, whereas local errors are those that do not significantly hinder communication (Hendrickson 391). Of course, correcting the global errors is considerably more beneficial to students as it can help to clarify the sentence’s meaning better than correcting several local errors. Students will also feel less discouraged when minor errors are tolerated.

How meticulously should mistakes in target language usage be corrected? Semke considers the effects of different error correction strategies for foreign language student compositions. The correction strategies are divided into four categories: comments only, corrections only, corrections and comments, and student corrections.Meticulous error correction is an activity that creates enormous demands on the teacher and can have discouraging and demotivating effects on students. Therefore, it is revealing that the error correction strategy with the best outcome in this study is that of comments only. The act of the teacher reviewing the composition and replying with thoughtful comments regarding the content of the composition and adding probing questions to continue the exchange was found to promote target language growth because the regular act of the writing activity is combined with meaningful exchanges with the teacher. These insights are significant because they encourage a stronger teacher to student relationship while reducing the workload of the already busy teacher.

Student self-assessment is also shown to have positive motivational effects in foreign language classrooms. Although instructors play a major role in error correction because they are the main source of target language information, they should not dominate the correction procedures. As there is a growing support for the student-centered classroom across all subject areas, giving foreign language students greater ownership of their educational development is full of positive potential.  Geeslin details a number of benefits and techniques for integrating student self-assessment into the foreign language classroom. Benefits include promoting student’s active involvement and accountability, requiring instructor accountability, and fostering increased student-instructor dialogue. Methods for integrating student self-assessment into the classroom include activities such as compositions, class presentations, student participation, and evaluation of long-term projects and portfolios. Of particular benefit to the teacher may be the area of student participation, which is commonly a desired quantity to measure, while at the same time being a particular challenge for the teacher to monitor effectively and accurately. As student self-assessment has not been a large part of traditional educational practices, it is recommended that it be integrated slowly and systematically with regular occurring activities such as weekly participation assessments of students.

How do we, as foreign language teachers, help to reduce anxieties and increase motivation in our students? Winke provides a powerful “Ten Commandments” list that can be used as a guide for all foreign language teachers. Setting a personal example, creating a nurturing learning environment, being a prepared teacher, fostering good relationships with students, encouraging students’ self-confidence, being enthusiastic ambassadors of the target language, supporting student independence, make the instruction personalized and relevant to the students, support students creation and pursuit of individual learning goals, and promoting the culture associated with the target language are all ways of increasing motivation in the foreign language classroom. Foreign language teachers who can thoughtfully consider these commandments and embrace them to the best of their ability will do a great service to their students.

This inquiry has led to some interesting insights that will be exciting to put into practice during our practica. We confirmed the importance of establishing a strong sense of community in the classroom that serves as the fundamental basis to building strong and healthy relationships. Once this trust gradually builds, our goal to help students learn to cope with anxiety-provoking situations will hopefully be more effective. Although there does not appear to be any magical solution to alleviate anxiety and stress in the foreign language classroom, the support and understanding of an instructor will be the best way to help them overcome these barriers and develop a sense of pride within themselves.

Works Cited:

Geeslin, Kimberly L. “Student Self-Assessment in the Foreign Language Classroom: The Place of Authentic Assessment Instruments in the Spanish Language Classroom.” Hispania 86.4 (2003): 857-68. Print.

Hendrickson, James M. “Error Correction in Foreign Language Teaching: Recent Theory, Research, and Practice.” The Modern Language Journal 62.8 (1978): 387-98. Print.

Horwitz, Elaine K., Michael B. Horwitz, and Joann Cope. “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety.” The Modern Language Journal 70.2 (1986): 125-32. Print.

Littlewood, William, and Baohua Yu. “First Language and Target Language in the Foreign Language Classroom.” Language Teaching 44.1 (2011): 64-77. Print.

Mori, Junko. “Negotiating Sequential Boundaries and Learning Opportunities: A Case from a Japanese Language Classroom.” The Modern Language Journal 88.4 (2004): 536-50. Print.

Semke, Harriet D. “Effects of the Red Pen.” Foreign Language Annals 17.3 (1984): 195-202. Print.

Terrell, T. D. “The Natural Approach to Language Teaching: An Update.” The Modern Language Journal 66.2 (1982): 121-32. Print.

Winke, Paula M. “Promoting motivation in the foreign language classroom.”Clear News 9.2 (2005): 1-12.

Young, Dolly Jesusita. “Creating a Low-Anxiety Classroom Environment: What does Language Anxiety Research Suggest?” The Modern Language Journal 75.4 (1991): 426-39. Print.

Works Consulted:

Aida, Yukie. “Examination of Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s Construct of Foreign Language Anxiety: The Case of Students of Japanese.” The Modern Language Journal 78.2 (1994): 155-68. Print.

Sparks, Richard L., and Leonore Ganschow. “Is the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale Measuring Anxiety Or Language Skills?” Foreign Language Annals 40.2 (2007): 260-87. Print.

Sung-Yeon Kim. “Is Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Context Free Or Context Dependent?” Foreign Language Annals 43.2 (2010): 187-9. Print.