Anxiety

1. Anxiety in SLA
Maryam Bolouri

2. Significance of Anxiety
• Dörnyei (2005) claimed that “there is no
doubt that anxiety affects L2
performance
• Arnold and Brown (1999), Anxiety is
generally seen as the affective factor
that most frequently hinders the
learning process.

3. What is Anxiety?
• It is intertwined with self-esteem, self
efficacy, inhibition and risk taking.
• it is not only difficult to define it but to
study it systematically because:
1. Learners are individualistic and
changeable.
2. Affective states are volatile and affect not
only overall progress but responses to
particular learning activities on a day by

4. Anxiety definition
• Spielberger (1983): “the subjective feeling of
tension, apprehension, nervousness, worry
associated with an arousal of the automatic
nervous system”
• Scovel (1978): feeling of uneasiness, frustration,
self-doubt, apprehension or worry
• Dornyei (2012): there is a general uncertainty
about the broader categorization of this concept:
1. It refers to a motivational component
2. Or it is a part of personality trait
3. It is often mentioned as one of the basic
emotions

5. Anxiety definition
• Schunk (2000):Anxiety has both cognitive and
affective components:
1. Cognitive side: worry and negative thought
and prediction some failure or negative
events
2. Affective side: it involves physiological
elements such as : sweaty palms, upset
stomach, racing heartbeats or emotional
reaction such as fear

6. Anxiety Types
1. Trait anxiety: permanent predisposition
to be anxious
2. State anxiety: : it is experienced at a
particular moment in time as a response
to definite situation
3. Situation specific anxiety : it is aroused
by a specific type of situation such as
public speaking examination, class
participation

7. Language anxiety:
• lg anxiety it is a specific situation anxiety
that associates with attempts to learn L2 and
communicate in it.
• High-anxiety foreign language students
exhibit many symptoms:
1. freezing up when asked to say something in
the L2 in front of the class
2. Blanking on the right answers during a
language test despite having studied hard
and even knowing the answers.

8. Language anxiety:
• Gregerson (2003) observed that
anxious language learners
1. Make more errors
2. Overestimate the number of their
errors
3. Self correct more than less anxious
learners

9. Components of language
anxiety:
:
1. Communication apprehension: arises
from learner inability to adequately
express mature thoughts and ideas
2. Fear of negative social evaluation:
arises from learner’s need to make a
positive social impression on others
3. Test anxiety over academic evaluation

10. • Self worth
• Intelligence (Bailey, Onwuegbuzie, & Daley. 2000)
• Learners’ competitive nature
• Perceived relationship with teacher
• Test and measurement tools
• Teacher’s classroom management competency
• Fear of losing oneself in the target culture- identity conflict
• perfectionism, set unrealistically high standards
(Gregerson and Horwits ,2002)
• Counterproductive beliefs about language
learning(Horwitz,1988) Misguided myths about language
learning
Questions1:
what causes state or situ anxiety?

11. Oxford (1992) listed the affective
states that are associated with this
anxiety:
Emotional regression, self pity
Anger, sadness
Indecision
Alienation
Reduced personality

12. Scales of anxiety:
1. Gardner and Smythe (1975): French class
anxiety scale and English test anxiety
2. Horwits, Horwits and Cope (1986): foreign lg
anxiety scale (33 5point Likert scale items)
• ‘Even if I am not well prepared for language
class, I feel anxious about it’
• ‘I always feel that the other students speak
the foreign language better than I do’.
• MacIntyre and Gardner (1994): Input,
Processing and Output Anxiety Scales
(IPOAS) 18 five-point Likert scale items

13. Input, Processing and Output
Anxiety Scales (IPOAS)
MacIntyre and Gardner (1994)
• Input stage of encountering aural or written input (‘I
get flustered unless French is spoken very slowly
and deliberately’),
• Processing stage of comprehending messages
and figuring out words and meanings (‘I am anxious
with French because, no matter how hard I try, I
have trouble understanding it’)
• Output stage of producing evidence of what one
has learned and can do in speaking or writing (‘I
may know the proper French expression but when I
am nervous it just won’t come out’).

14. Question 2: what effect does
anxiety have on learning?
• It affects three stages of learning:
1. Input
2. Processing
3. Output
• most studies have focused on the effect on
output and little is known about the influence of
anxiety on input and processing

15. There are several reasons for this
mixed result:
1) Curvilinear relationship:
The relationship btw them probably is not
linear one. It has a curvilinear effect on
performance
2) types of anxiety:
Alpert and Haber (1960) distinction btw
facilitation and debilitating anxiety
3) Sometimes these two types cancel out each
other so the apparent result is no
achievement

16. 2 dimensions of anxiety
• Dornyei (2005): there are 2 dimensions to
understand anxiety:
• 1) Beneficial vs. inhibitory anxiety:
• this dichotomy refers to whether or not anxiety
can be a positive or negative force
• Williams (1991) it is related to the intensity of
anxiety:
• Low-anxiety state has a facilitating role
• High-anxiety state has a debilitating effect.
• 2) Trait vs. state anxiety:
• this refers to whether anxiety is a part of
individuals make up across many situations or

17. A model to account for the role
anxiety in lg learning
• MacIntyre and Gardner (1991b) proposed a
model that
• anxiety -----------------------------------learning
1)Stages of learner’s
development
2) Specific situation
experiences
LearningAnxiety

19. According to this model:
1. Poor performance can be the cause as
well as the result of anxiety (in line with
Skehan’s findings, 1989)
2. There is sufficient evidence that
anxiety is an important factor in SLA
3. It cannot be seen as a factor that its
presence or absence leads to success
or failure in SLA but a factor that
contribute in different degrees in
different learners

20. Sigmund Tobias (1985)
Suggested a model to explain how anxiety
interferes at 3 points in the learning and
performance cycle
• Attention: highly anxious learners divide the
attention btw new material and nervous
feelings
• Learning: if they pay attention, they have still
problems in learning
• use of memory, distraction, poor strategies
and habits
• Testing: the often know more than they can
demonstrate on tests so they may lack test
taking skills

21. The questions that has not been
answered adequately are:
1. Under What condition the anxiety has
an effect on lg learning?
2. How can anxiety be measured
adequately based on somatic
response rather that self report
questionnaire?
3. Is anxiety the cause of poor
performance in SLA or the product of
less satisfactory performance ?

22. LDCH hypothesis:
• Anxiety is the result of
1) Foreign lg learning difficulties
2) First lg deficits
Other disagree with LDCH because:
1) Raised strong objection to the validity of the
argument
2) Anxiety is the common source of interference in
all kinds of learning
3) Highly proficient lg learners experience anxiety
4) over one third of lg learners reported forms of
anxiety it seems highly implausible to attribute

23. Implications in ELT:
1. Hoffman (1986): anxiety can direct attention away
from meaning and toward pure form or physical
features of words such as acoustic properties,
order of presentation, and phonetic similarities
So when meaningful use of language is important
anxiety can be a negative factor
2. Teachers should try to determine whether a
student’s anxiety stems from a more global trait
or from a particular situation at the moment.
(both too much or too little anxiety may hinder
the process of SLA

24. Implications in ELT:
3. Class should promote low anxiety and non-
defensive posture among learners, where they
don’t feel they are in a competition with one
another
4. Teachers should identify learners with poor
studying skills and learning strategies and try
to equip them with useful ones.
5. Teachers should identify those “freeze and
forget” learners and present test taking skills in
class.

25. Implications in ELT:
6. Teachers should guide anxious students to
set appropriate short and long term goals
with goal cards, progress chart, or goal
planning journals.
7. If possible eliminate time limits on important
tests because high anxiety learners work too
quickly or slowly

27. 8. Learners can use 3 kinds of coping
strategies:
A. Problem solving: plan a study schedule,
borrow good notes, find a protected place
to study
B. Emotional management: to reduce anxious
feelings by relaxation strategies, or
describing the feeling to a friend
C. Avoidance: go out with a friend, do some
chores

29. Learners’ attitudes

30. Where do they come from?
• It is the result of parents or peers’ attitudes of
contact with people who are different in a
number of ways
• Attitude develops early in childhood
• They form a part of person’s perception of self,
others, and the culture in which he is living
• Stereotyping implies some attitude toward the
culture or lg

31. Pioneers in this field:
• Gardner and lamberts studied extensively
the effect of attitude on lg learning and after
studying the interrelationship they defined:
• 1) motivation is made up of certain attitude
• 2) Positive attitude toward a nationality is a
desire to understand them and to empathize
with them
• 3) it will lead to an integrative orientation to
learn their lg

32. • Biased attitude are based on:
• Insufficient knowledge
• Misinformed stereotyping
• Extreme ethnocentric thinking

33. Social distance:
• Learners do not feel an affinity with L2
speakers
• It creates a psychological and social
distance from speakers of L2
• The immediate consequence is diminished
amount of data

34. Schumann’s (1978) acculturation
model.
• Acculturation is made up of:
1. Social variables
The extent of dominance over the other
group (dominant, non-dominant,
subordinate)
for instance colonization or immigration
The extent of integration (assimilation or
emphasis on preserving one’s own lifestyle
and lg) degree of disclosure
2. Affective variables

35. Schumann’s (1978) acculturation
model
• Cohesiveness (size of the L2 group)
• Congruence: similar in values and beliefs
systems
• Permanence: intended length of residence in
the target lg area
• These factors describe good or bad lg
learning situations
• The greater the distance-> the greater the
difficulty the learner will have in SLA

36. Problems with Schumann’s model:
• It is difficult to accept that acculturation
is the causal variable in SLA.
• There may be many other variable that
interact with it such as personality
variables
• these variables can set the stage for
learning but not causing learning

37. Attitude and motivation
• In the field of L2 motivation, attitudes have
been identified as emotional precursors of
the initiation of learning behavior.
• It is partly derived from one’s self-appraisal
(Skaalvik 1997).
• Bong and Skaalvik (2003) argue that this
affective dimension of one’s self-efficacy has
important motivating power.
• it is also suggested that irrespective of age,
attitudes to L2 learning have a strong
influence on effort and persistence

38. Dornyei’s (2005) and Kormos et al.
(2011) models
• language learning attitudes are inter-related
with the Ideal L2 self
• four learner-internal factors:
• goals, attitudes, self-guides, and self-efficacy
beliefs interact with each other.
• self-guides, self-efficacy beliefs, and attitudes
have direct links to goals

39. Dornyei’s (2005) and Kormos et al.
(2011) models
• motivated behavior influences effort and
persistence in language learning through the
mediation of attitudes and self-related
beliefs.
• learners are situated in the systems of their
social, cultural, and instructional setting and
these external factors influence the
components of learner internal motivation.

41. Implication for ELT:
• Second lg learners benefit from positive
attitude and negative attitude may lead to
decreased motivation
• Negative attitude can be changed often by
exposure to reality or interaction with actual
persons.
• Negative attitude emerges from one’s
indirect exposure to a culture or group
through TV, movies, news, media, books that
may be less reliable

42. Implication for ELT:
• Teachers can dispel myth about other
cultures and replace them with an
accurate understanding of other
cultures.
• So learners move through awareness
and value, respect and appreciate
foreign culture.

43. Systems of
Goals, Attitudes, and Self-related Beliefs in Second-
Language- Learning Motivation. Applied Linguistics,
32(5), 495–516

44. Learner Attitudes, Perceptions,
and Beliefs in Language Learning. Foreign
Language Annals, 45(1). pp.98–S117