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FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM ANXIETY

Anxiety is described as the Subjective feeling of tension, apprehension,

nervousness and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous

system (Spielberg, 1.983; p.15).

Considering that anxiety has to do with feelings, nervousness and apprehension, it

is significant to mention that it can either facilitate or hinder a second language

acquisition due to the fact that by experimenting anxiety during a language learning

process a student can stop or even postpone its oral production or language

usage; by feeling overwhelmed and keeping in silent when expected to speak in

the target language. It sometimes happens that students show feelings of inferiority

when speaking in front of their classmates because they consider themselves not

as quite good language users as their classmates are and as a consequence they

fear to be laugh at.

Foreign language classroom anxiety can be a debilitating or facilitating factor. This

is similar to say that it can be an obstacle or can foster the language learning

process and oral production. Many learners get anxious when producing any kind

of speech but sometimes and depending of the learner individualities this anxiety

can be seemed as if it is to help the student to start talking and producing new

language forms not mattering if the language is being correctly used, but all the

same being used; which is known as positive anxiety. Another way in which anxiety

can be experimented is in a negative way, in which students are asked to use the

language and they simply cannot use it because there is something that does not

let them to do it; some aspects that can impede the process of producing language

can be peer pressure, nervousness, shame, feelings of inferiority or lack of self-

confidence and it can cause even reactions such as nausea, sweating, playing with

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their hairs, and stammer when talking, in which the subject in discussion can be an

impediment to the new language user.

To continue with, foreign language classroom anxiety is considered to be a kind of

situational anxiety. It is said that due to the fact that this unease is given in a

specific context which is the classroom itself, and it is a common phenomenon in

novice students who often get a lower performance in the classrooms, which

makes speaking the most anxiety provoking aspect; this singularity is less probably

to be found in higher proficiency level language students or in novice students that

have mastered perfectly in using the language who commonly answer to different

language situations.

To sum up, and taking into consideration the information previously read, it is

essential to mention that strategies such us collaborative learning, pair work and

teachers and students interaction must be done but carefully and step by step for

the reason that the majority of students feel uncomfortable when speaking in a

target language, hence giving positive reinforcement and avoiding negative

evaluation would be substantial when helping new language users to overcome

anxiety and all the possible problems resulting from this issue that issue.

By: Leiny Rosa Montalvo Lpez.