This article focuses on the study that aims to find out the levels and the major causes of speaking anxiety experienced by the third-year students at SMPN 2 Bayat of Anambas Island. Total sampling ...was used in this research since the pool of participants was relatively small consisting of 13 students overall. In collecting the data, students were asked to fill out a set based on a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaire developed by Horwitz et al (1986). After analyzing the data, it was found that most students experienced speaking anxiety on a moderate level. The results suggested that 4 students with a percentage of 30.77% were classified as a high level, 9 students with a percentage of 69.23% were classified as a moderate level and none of the students or 0% was classified to have a low level of anxiety. Additionally, “lack of preparation”, “afraid of being laughed at” and “afraid of being called in English classes” were the major causes of speaking anxiety that most participants agreed with. Thus, some suggestions were provided with the expectation of reducing students’ anxiety while speaking English.
The present study sought to understand the nature and level of foreign language (FL) anxiety among primary school students and the relationship between FL anxiety and FL achievement. Changes in FL ...anxiety across groups of three primary school years were also examined. A total of 631 (324 male, 307 female) primary school students aged 9–11 years completed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) that measured students’ FL anxiety. Our participants’ FL achievements as measured by low-stakes regular assessments and high-stakes formal examinations were also collected. On average, primary school students reported levels of FL anxiety comparable to those of adults observed in previous studies. Factor analysis on FLCAS generated four components of FL anxiety: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety and negative attitude towards classroom. Correlation analyses showed that students’ FL anxiety was inversely correlated with their FL achievements. The correlation was stronger for formal examinations with higher stakes as compared to regular assessments with lower stakes. Finally, the correlation strengthened as a function of higher instructional level. Results are discussed in relation to previous research. Implications to FL education are also considered.
This three‐phase study utilized item response theory (IRT) and both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA) approaches to validate the short‐form foreign language classroom anxiety ...scale (S‐FLCAS) for measuring Chinese college students' foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). The sample consisted of 855 Chinese college students. Phase 1 was conducted within the EFA and CFA frameworks to investigate the construct validity of the S‐FLCAS. Phase 2 was conducted within IRT frameworks to assess the reliability of this scale. Lastly, Phase 3 adopted multi‐group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) to explore the measurement invariance across gender and second language (L2) learner groups. The findings revealed that the Chinese version of S‐FLCAS is a reliable and valid instrument, exhibiting unidimensional characteristics. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance were identified across gender groups, while configural, partial metric, and partial scalar invariance were observed across L2 groups. This study further discussed the reasons for some suboptimal performance of the S‐FLCAS and practical implications for researchers and university educators.
Practitioner points
The S‐FLCAS possesses a unidimensional structure for assessment.
The S‐FLCAS is suitable for evaluating FLCA among Chinese college students, demonstrating strong reliability and construct validity.
The S‐FLCAS maintains measurement invariance across gender and second language (L2) learner groups.
This paper is part of a study which addresses the reliability of Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) in Malay version. Researchers find that the reliability of an instrument is closely associated ...with its validity and an instrument cannot be valid unless it is reliable. However, the reliability of an instrument does not depend on its validity. Therefore, this paper investigates the reliability of the instrument called FLCAS in Malay version. FLCAS is widely used in collecting data relating to language anxiety and perhaps the most reliable and comprehensive tool in language anxiety. This paper objectively measures the reliability of FLCAS by using Cronbach’s Alpha, the most widely used objective measure of reliability. The sampled population involved 302 respondents from the government secondary schools in Putrajaya Federal Territory, Malaysia. The items had been translated into the Malay language and back translated into English. Results show that the internal consistency of Crobanch’s Alpha 0.90. It can be concluded that FLCAS in Malay version is an appropriate instrument to measure the levels of language anxiety among the Malaysian secondary school students who learn English as a second language.
The study investigated anxiety of Japanese EFL students towards making a presentation in English in an oral presentation contest. Japanese students’ language anxiety was measured using a ...questionnaire and a Japanese version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Yashima, Noels, Takeuchi, Yamane, & Yoshizawa, 2009) prior to and after the speech contest that was held at the end of semester. Two research questions were posed for the study: 1) how the speech contest affected students’ anxiety and 2) whether there was a difference between the students’ anxiety that participated in the contest as presenters and that participated as audience. A total of 85 university students participated in the study, and the results showed that although there was no significant difference between presenters’ and audience’s anxiety, devising the oral presentation contest had a statistically significant effect on reducing students’ speech anxiety towards making a presentation in English overall, suggesting that implementing an oral presentation contest in Japanese EFL context may have a positive effect on students’ foreign language anxiety.
L2 Willingness to Communicate (L2WTC) is an important precursor of L2 behavior and actual use of L2. Associations between L2WTC and other L2 concepts, such as foreign language anxiety and ...self-perceived L2 competence, have been studied for some time. L2 learning is likely associated with other, broader psychological concepts, such as personality, and it is the aim of this study to explore the associations between L2WTC, foreign language anxiety, self-perceived L2 competence, openness to experience and extraversion, in the Saudi context. Being the first study to explore these associations in this context, this study has the potential to contribute to understanding of relatively low English competence among Saudi students by seeking to understand predictors of L2WTC. After conducting factor analyses (principal axis factoring with direct oblimin) of raw scores, two separate multiple regression analyses were conducted, with L2WTC outside classroom (L2WTC-OC) and L2WTC inside classroom (L2WTC-IC) factors as dependent variables, and factors relating to foreign language anxiety, self-perceived L2 competence, extraversion, and openness to experience entered as predictors. The addition of openness to experience improved prediction of L2WTC-IC above and beyond other factors (R square change = .025; p=.001), while addiction of extraversion improved prediction of L2WTC-OC (R square change = .032; p=.025).
This study examined gender differences in language anxiety and a possible influence of gender and anxiety on L2 performance. Anxiety was measured by the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale ...(FLCAS) and L2 performance was determined by the final grade of 948 university students learning English in Korea. The results indicated that (a) females reported higher anxiety levels compared to males, (b) females and high anxiety students received higher grades than males and low anxiety students, respectively, (c) six items in the anxiety scale showed differential item functioning across gender with females endorsing higher levels of anxiety than males, and (d) the result of gender differences in the scale was not significantly influenced by the six items, providing evidence to the construct validity of the scale. The findings were discussed along with theoretical and practical implications for better understanding of language anxiety both in L2 acquisition and in teaching.
An important aspect that may hinder a foreign language learning is anxiety. This qualitative study attempts to examine the phenomena of speaking anxiety and clarify its causes and treatments. Thirty ...junior high school students of grade IX (nine) participated in this study. Interviews and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaires were used to collect the data. The findings of this study reveal that the anxiety the students experience when speaking English falls into three distinct categories: low, moderate, and high, with the majority of the students had a high level of anxiety. Furthermore, it was also found that a lack of provisions and preparations to learn English, the fear of making pronunciation and grammatical errors, and feeling insecure around interlocutors who are more proficient in the language are the factors that cause students to feel anxious when speaking English.. In light of the findings of this study, students should continue to practice speaking English, attempt to reduce feelings of insecurity, maintain a positive outlook, and improve their drive to learn to speak English.
Language anxiety becomes an important area on language teaching and learning. It has been a common issue in the EFL context and had a profound consequence in language teaching. Furthermore, a feeling ...of anxiety has been experienced by a number of foreign language learners in their English language classroom. Therefore, the objective of this research was to investigate some factors influenced the students’ anxiety and also to find out kinds of anxiety experienced by them. The data were collected through FLCAS (Foreign language Classroom Anxiety Scale) from 30 English Department students of IAIN Lhokseumawe and 25 students of Al Muslim University and semi-structured interviews with 6 students as research’s participant. The data were analyzed descriptively to answer research questions. The findings indicated that students of IAIN Lhokseumawe had a higher level of anxiety compared with students of Al Muslim University. In addition, some factors causing students’ anxiety were lack of mental readiness, knowledge of vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and prior knowledge of the classroom activities, including the anxiety to take Anxiety Test.
PDF
