Keywords: anxiety, university students, listening and speaking.
Mastering of a language requires the development of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the era of technology when we have access to all varieties of internet resources yet we face some difficulties related with improving these skills. Being a teacher of English as a foreign language (EFL), one may come across with some obstacles while doing listening tasks or trying to make oral discussion in the classroom. Normally, this has happened to everyone quiet a lot and we all have been looking for the reasons of them. From the author's personal experience anxiety may reduce the student's desire to understand and reproduce a language. The issue of anxiety is more common with adult learners. Therefore, the research will be carried out with special reference to undergraduate university students.
Listening and speaking can be considered as those abilities which are the most essential for each language learner and they are more probable to be the most difficult. Especially comparing to mother tongue (L1) or any second language which we acquire from childhood, the languages that we «learn» in adulthood are more likely to cause anxiety. Anxiety may demotivate or even build a barrier to all of the information input connected with language acquired or learnt. The efforts spend on teaching might be worthless unless you overcome the problems causing these tensions in the classroom. Also the process of learning itself will seem to get stuck as the learner will fill that they are not able to use the new language in a way it is meant to be: as a tool of communication, which indicates you have to understand what others say and express your own thoughts, emotions and views. Not being able to do this may possibly lead to quitting language learning at all or at least to postponing the long-expected results associated with the progression. Generally speaking all aspects of using and learning a foreign language can cause anxiety, but yet listening and speaking are regularly mentioned as the most frequent of foreign language learning activities which could turn the process into «a nightmare». (Horwirz E., Horwirz M., Joanne C., 1986)
Anxiety may develop in every individual’s life. Freud, in early the nineteenth century, was the one who initially introduced that anxiety was a kind of unpleasant feeling associated with experience, physiology, and behaviors.
Looking for the betterment of different techniques in FLT number of scholars mentioned the importance of reducing anxiety in teaching process.
For instance, the reason for our inefficiency, Lozanov asserts, is that we set up psychological barriers to learning: We fear that we will be unable to perform, that we will be limited in our ability to learn, that we will fail (Diane Larsen-Freeman and Marti Anderson, 2011, p. 102).
One more approach which advocates the necessity of lack of uneasiness in FLT classes is Krashen and Terrell’s Natural Approach. This approach is based on human’s natural desire to learn and clarifies that «comprehensible input» is fundamental. Whereas it also states «Creating a low affective filter is also a condition for acquisition that is met when the classroom atmosphere is one in which anxiety is reduced and students’ self-confidence is boosted. The filter is kept low as well by the fact that students are not put on the spot to speak; they speak when they are ready to do so.» (Diane Larsen-Freeman and Marti Anderson, 2011, p. 137)
According to Tegan (2013) mixed methods can help you gain more complete picture than a standalone quantitative or qualitative study, as it integrates benefits of both methods. Also using mixed method the researcher bases the inquiry on the assumption that collecting diverse types of data best provides an understanding of a research problem. The study begins with a broad survey in order to generalize results to a population and then, in a second phase, focuses on qualitative open-ended interviews to collect detailed views from participants (Creswell, 2009).
The research was conducted in two steps: questionnaires and interviews. The survey contained ten statements and the answers could range in accordance with the level of agreement. The interview consisted of ten open ended questions. Eighty nine second year students, who study English as their major subject took part in the interviews and survey. Questioning and interviewing were conducted during two weeks (23.04–07.04.2022).
The survey and questionnaires brought to these findings:
– Listening and speaking more commonly cause anxiety.
– Speaking is not all about vocabulary and grammar is also about daring to speak.
– Low anxiety environment increases learners’ motivation.
– Teachers’ part in lowering anxiety and motivating students’ is great.
It worth mentioning that university students who are prepared to become EFL teachers realize that they need reasonable knowledge of the language which causes more concern on necessity of first-class listening and speaking skills. Lack of self confidence is also another factor which affects anxiety whereas one is surrounded by more skilled peers who may make laugh of him. But in most cases the people more educated in the field serve as a motivating tool and source of the language which the other person may appreciate and accept as a challenge. It means that peers impact on anxiety depends on students’ personal attitude.
Listening anxiety usually doesn’t turn up so commonly while listening to teachers or to other students, because one may reassure what they have heard or even expect some hints which is not possible while listening to some tracks. In this situation they have to keep in mind all of the information and even be able to prove their comprehension by answering to questions or doing some extra exercises afterwards. High rate of speaking and distracting noises can be highlighted as the reasons of anxiety connected with listening. Here teachers are the ones who can give a hand. If they provide the core points beforehand, introduce unknown words, be supportive and friendly, belief in the success of tasks increases.
Moreover teachers’ comments have a great role, probably even greater role than anybody’s remarks in the classroom. Pointing at the mistakes all the time is not the best way of instruction. Apart from teaching skills, the psychological aspect of teaching is critical to the learning process. In fact, more often than not, when students are asked about their best teachers, they will describe how the teacher made them feel before mentioning how much they learned (Hashim et al., 2014).
In a nutshell we may conclude that anxiety is a frequent phenomenon in FLT and EFL classes, which possibly will cause some difficulties while fulfilling listening and speaking exercises in particular. To avoid those obstacles the teachers should become conscious of their immense part in the teaching process and the learners are supposed to be confident of themselves and to work on their progress.
References:
1. Creswell, John W. (2009)Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. (3rd ed.) Los Angeles: Sage.
2. Hashim, N. M. H. N., Alam, S. S., & Yusoff, N. M. (2014). Relationship between teacher’s personality, monitoring, learning environment, and students’ EFL performance. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies, 14(1).
3. Horwirz E., Horwirz M., Joanne C., (1986) Foreign language classroom anxiety; https://www.jstor.org/stable/327317
4. Krashen, S. (2002). Explorations in language acquisition and use: The Taipei Lectures. Taipei: Crane Publishing Co.
