MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ DOAN THANH THU EFL STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO LEARNERS AND TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University HUE, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ DOAN THANH THU EFL STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO LEARNERS AND TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN HO HOANG THUY HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ -------- ĐOÀN THANH THƯ ÁP LỰC TÂM LÝ KHI HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH: NGHIÊN CỨU THÁI ĐỘ CỦA NGƯỜI DẠY VÀ NGƯỜI HỌC LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. NGUYỄN HỒ HOÀNG THỦY HUẾ, 2020 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Hue, 06/09/2020 i ABSTRACT This study investigates the foreign language anxiety of EFL students at some upper secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue province. Specifically, it aims to explore students’ attitudes towards foreign language anxiety and teachers’ attitudes toward their students’ foreign language anxiety. The study employed questionnaire, autobiography and interview to collect data. The questionnaire was delivered to 150 students from two upper-secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue province.
Meanwhile, eight of these students were selected to write autobiography and six English teachers from these schools were invited to participate in the interviews. Data from the questionnaire was analyzed quantitatively and presented in charts and tables, while information from the autobiography and interviews was transcribed and analyzed qualitatively. The study found that students had high level of foreign language anxiety. They were affected by foreign language anxiety both negatively and positively, with negative effects outweighing positive ones.
The findings also indicated that teachers accepted and had the tendency to have both positive and negative attitudes toward their students’ foreign language anxiety. The teachers also attempted to create comfortable classroom atmosphere and adjust their teaching methods so as to tackle their students’ foreign language anxiety. The study suggested that both students and teachers should accept foreign language anxiety as part of the foreign language learning; more importantly, teachers should support and help students to overcome foreign language anxiety. ii Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to people who have advised and supported me, and made constructive criticism during the research.
Thanks are extended to my supervisor for her professional guidance and support. Without her generous professional support and encouragement, this thesis could not reach this present standard. I am very grateful to the students and the teachers at Hai Ba Trung and Gia Hoi upper secondary schools who carefully completed the questionnaires and sincerely provided me with valuable information for this research in the autobiographies and interviews. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Board of Director, the Library Staff at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University for their support during the time I carried out this study.
I wish to express my deep thanks to my family and friends for all their understanding, faith, and involvement while I was conducting this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of originality. iii Table of contents. Background of the study.
Rationale of the study. Objectives of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the study.
Definition of anxiety. Types of anxiety. The concept of foreign language anxiety. Definition of foreign language anxiety.
Types of foreign language anxiety. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. Effects of foreign language anxiety on students’ language learning. Students and teachers’ attitudes towards FLA.
Students’ attitudes towards FLA. Students’ positive attitudes towards FLA. Students’ negative attitudes towards FLA. Teachers attitudes toward students’ FLA.
Review of related studies. Rationale for selecting data collection instruments. Description of data collection instruments. Procedures for data collection.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students’ range of FLA. Students’ attitudes towards foreign language anxiety. Teachers’ attitudes toward students’ foreign language anxiety.
Summary of the key findings. Implications for teaching practice. Implications for student learning. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further research. 61 v LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4. Students’ range of FLA. 35 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Students’ attitudes towards positive statements about FLA .2: Students’ attitudes toward negative statements about FLA.
38 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FLA : Foreign language anxiety CA : Communication apprehension FoNE : Fear of negative evaluation FLL : Foreign language learning FLCAS : Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study It is believed that anxiety is a normal emotion which one person has experienced at least once in his life (Swift, Cyhlarova, Goldie, & O’Sullivan, 2014). According to Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), anxiety may be described as a feeling of tension, nervous feeling and worry which was connected with arousal of the autonomic nervous system. While some people become worried and scared when facing anxiety, others feel more motivated.
Hence, it seems that anxiety has both negative and positive aspects affecting human life. Concerning the effects of anxiety on learning, Kennedy (2015) claimed that it is impossible for both comprehension and learning to occur in an anxiety atmosphere. In other words, anxiety significantly affects learning and ability to grasp ideas. Horwitz et al.
(1986) stated that anxiety can be a difficult problem for some people to achieve in science or Mathematics and in foreign language learning. Particularly, they declared the majority of students feel anxious in classroom contexts. According to MacIntyre and Gardner (1991), higher anxiety in language classrooms could lead to a number of negative impacts on students’ language learning. For instance, it is reluctant for students to raise their voice or take part in language classroom activities.
Besides, they often have problems in understanding complex language structures. Moreover, foreign language anxiety (FLA) has a bad connection with test results. Horwitz et al. (1986) indicated FLA was considered as a specific situation anxiety.
They also divided FLA into three main types consisting of Communication Apprehension, Test anxiety, and Fear of Negative Evaluation. In addition to these types of anxiety, English class anxiety was mentioned in their Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). 1 It can be seen that FLA is a natural part in language classes and directly affects students’ foreign language learning. Besides, teachers also have a remarkable impact on students’ FLA.
According to Tran, Baldauf and Moni (2013), students and teachers are directly involved in the language learning and teaching process, so the studies of their perceptions and attitudes towards FLA are crucial. Therefore, they need to afford to find strategies to manage it. Crookall and Oxford (1991) claimed although FLA cannot disappear in classroom, teachers would play a vital role to reduce students’ FLA. First of all, teachers must accept students’ FLA as a natural factor in language classes.
In Young’s (1991) opinion, teachers can use their own personality or class activities to motivate language class environment. Particularly, Tallon (2008) believed that teachers mainly encourage and show students how to overcome their FLA. He also stated that teachers had better cooperate with students to find effective ways to reduce FLA in language classes. Moreover, students have to accept the existence of FLA in language classes and should be guided to encounter FLA (Crookall & Oxford, 1991).
Rationale of the study There is very little research on investigating teachers’ and students’ awareness of and attitudes towards FLA. 30 years ago, Rosenfeld (1978) carried out a study involving sociological teachers’ awareness of student anxiety. Recently, Tran et al. (2013) focused on understanding its status and insiders’ awareness and attitudes toward FLA.
There are a large number of studies about FLA conducted such as Horwitz et al.’s (1986), Crookall and Oxford’s (1991), Tallon’s (2008), Gocer’s (2014) and so on. However, most studies about FLA had not been explored widely in the Vietnamese context and had not investigated students’ attitudes toward foreign language anxiety and teachers’ attitudes toward students’ anxiety, apart from the studies of Tran and co-workers (2013) and Le (2016). These studies only focused on FLA in lower- secondary schools and tertiary context. As a result, the current researcher found it necessary to conduct research to investigate learners and teachers’ 2 attitudes towards foreign language anxiety of EFL students at some upper secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue Province.
It is expected that the study can help students and teachers realize FLA and its effects on learning foreign language. From that, they can co-operate to deal with FLA in order to improve the results. Objectives of the study The objectives of this study are to explore students’ attitudes towards FLA and teachers’ attitudes towards their students’ FLA. Research questions To meet these objectives, the research endeavoured to address the following questions: 1.
What are students’ attitudes toward foreign language anxiety? 2. What are English teachers’ attitudes toward their students’ foreign language anxiety? 1. Significance of the study The study is significant in a number of ways. First, the study provided an overview of students’ attitudes towards FLA at some high schools that can help teachers understand their students’ learning obstacles.
Second, the study explored teachers’ attitudes toward students’ FLA, which makes them care about their students’ learning obstacles and encourage their students to overcome their own anxiety with proper methods. Structure of the study The research consists of five chapters, namely Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Findings and Discussion, and Conclusion. - Chapter 1 introduces the background, the rationale, the objective and the research questions, the significance, and the structure of the study. 3 - Chapter 2 presents the review of the literature relevant to the research, particularly focusing on the related studies to the field.
Concepts such as anxiety, foreign language anxiety, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) were brought into discussion, followed by learners and teachers’ attitudes toward FLA. A review of related studies was made toward the end of the chapter in order to pinpoint the research gap inspiring the current study. - Chapter 3 provides information about the research methodology, including research approach, research participants, data collection and data analysis. In particular, the data collection section was elaborated in terms of rationale for selecting the data collection instruments, description of data collection instruments and procedures for data collection.
- Chapter 4 displays the findings and discussion of the study, involving the students’ range of FLA as the preliminary picture of how the subsequent data on the students and teachers’ attitudes toward FLA would be presented and discussed. Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards FLA were detailed into students’ attitudes toward positive and negative statements about FLA. - Chapter 5 presents the summary of the key findings in the research, followed by implications for English teaching and learning. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research were also included in this chapter.
Scope of the study First of all, the study attempts to explore students and teachers attitudes toward FLA in some upper secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue Province. Secondly, the study only focuses on investigating negative and positive attitudes of students toward FLA, and negative and positive attitudes of teachers toward students’ FLA.