Faculty of Humanities
MA in Language and Education (Linguistics)
Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety:
A Study of Teacher Anxiety in Non-Native Foreign Language Teachers in
the Netherlands
Student: Soufiane El Ouastani (11926201) Supervisor: Dr. Rose van der Zwaard
The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which foreign langua ge teaching anxiety shaped the experiences of non-native foreign language teachers in the Netherlands. Specifically, this study aimed to: (1) determine the scope and the severity of foreign language teaching anxiety in non-native foreign language teachers; (2) investiga te whether there is a correlation between the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety and different foreign languages; (3) identify the potential sources of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers; (4) identify the strategies that non-native foreign language teachers employ to cope with their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety and determine what possible classroom implications these strategies could have. 38 non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers participated in this study by completing a questionnaire and participating in follow-up in-depth, one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study demonstrated that non-native foreign langua ge teachers in the Netherlands experience feelings of anxiety in relation to teaching a fore ign language. It was also found the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety among the participants were dependent on their different target languages. In addition, this study found that there are multiple sources of foreign language teaching anxiety among the participants. Finally, this study found that the participants employed different coping mechanisms to deal with their anxiety, some of which might negatively impact the quality of their classroom instruction.
1. Introduction……….………….……1
1. 1. Contextualisation……….….…..…1
1. 2. Background……….……...………2
1. 2. 1. Anxiety as a psychological construct……….………2
1. 2. 2. Anxiety in the context of foreign language learning………..………2
1. 2. 3. Foreign Language Anxiety……….………4
1. 3. Study………..……….………6
1. 4. Outline………7
2. Literature Review……….………7
2. 1. Foreign language teaching anxiety……….………7
2. 2. Potential effects of foreign language teaching anxiety…………..………9
2. 3. Alleviating foreign language teaching anxiety……….10
3. Research Questions………..………..11
4. Methodology………..……….………12
4. 1. Participants………...………12
4. 1. 1. Non-native pre-service language teachers sample………...………12
4. 1. 2. Non-native beginning language teachers sample……….14
4. 2. Instruments………..……….………15 4. 2. 1. Questionnaire ………..………15 4. 2. 2. Interview………..……….………16 4. 4. Procedures ………...………17 4. 4. 1. Data collection……….……….………17 4. 4. 2. Data analysis………19 5. Results……….………20 5. 1. Research question 1………..………21 5. 1. Research question 2………..………22 5. 1. Research question 3………..………23 5. 1. Research question 4………..………27
6. Discussion and Conclusions………...………29
6. 1. Implications.……….………35
6. 2. Limitations of the study………36
6. 3. Suggestions for further research………...………37
Appendices ……….……… 40
1. Introduction
1. 1. Contextualisation
The process of learning a second or a foreign language is shaped by multiple, complex, acting and interacting dynamics. For example, variables such as attitude, aptitude and motivation, as well as the interrelationship between these variables, have long been established by a considerable volume of theoretical and empirical studies as having a vital, determining role in the learning of a foreign language (Gardner & Lambert, 1965, 1972; Carroll, 1981; Krashen, 1981). Learners’ individual learning styles, foreign language learning strategies and approaches, as well as the social context under which foreign languages are taught and learned, have all also been postulated as crucial predictors of foreign language learning success or failure (Oxford, 1990; Schuman, 1976). In recent years, researchers have identified anxiety as another major factor in the context of foreign language learning (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). In fact, anxiety has become one of the most important issues of concern among foreign language researchers and educators in their attempt to understand differences in foreign language learning achievement and performance.
Anxiety and its classroom implications has been the subject of an ever-growing number of studies that have investigated the disorder extensively in a multitude of social, cultural and instructional settings and with learners of different foreign languages and of different levels (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Horwitz, 1986, 1996, Maclntyre & Gardner 1994; Young, 1990, 1991a; Horwitz & Young, 1991; Aida, 1994; Yang, 2012; Al-Saraj, 2014, Woodrow, 2006). As a result, anxiety has become one of the most extensively investigated psychologic a l variables in foreign language research. A review of the available literature on anxiety-rela ted research in the field of foreign language learning demonstrates that the disorder has more often than not been found to stymies foreign language learning. Indeed, notwithstanding some of the early inconclusive findings (see Scovel, 1978 for an overview) and some of the noteworthy conflicting views regarding the correlation between anxiety and foreign language learning (see Sparks & Ganschow, 1991 for an example), anxiety has been largely shown to unequivoca l ly cause problems for foreign language learners. According to Maclntyre and Gardner (1991), anxiety influences foreign language learning by interfering with “the acquisition, retention and production of the new language” (p.86).
1. 2. Background
1. 2. 1. Anxiety as a psychological construct
Anxiety is generally defined as “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” (Spielberger, 1983, p. 1). Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder (Kessler & Greenberg, 2002). It is a multidimensional and complex psychological state that encompasses a compound of cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions (Sarason, 1988). What makes anxiety a complex and a fiendishly difficult state to deal with lies in the fact that what triggers it could differ from one situation to another and from one individual to another (Ohata, 2005). In other words, the many sources of anxiety are dependent on context and on an individua l’s own perception of what is a threat. Accordingly, psychologists have generally approached anxiety through three different perspectives.
Psychologists generally distinguish between three types of anxieties, namely trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety. State anxiety refers to the fear and the psychological turmoil experienced by individuals under particular circumstances (Spielberger, 1983). This type of anxiety is often seen as a response to particular situations and is more likely to change from one situation to another. Trait anxiety refers to “differences between people in the tendency to perceive stressful situation as dangerous or threatening and to respond to such situations with elevations in the intensity of their state anxiety reactions” (Spielberger, 1983, p.1). Therefore, and unlike state anxiety, trait anxiety is permanent and consistent across a wide range of situations. Situation-specific anxiety refers to the predisposition to experience anxiety reactions in well-defined situations, such as public speaking or participating in class, for instance (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991). In other words, situation-specific anxiety is a trait anxiety limited to a specific situation (MacIntyre, 1999). This perspective on anxiety emerged as an alternative to state anxiety, because of the view that certain specific situations are more likely to induce anxiety reactions than others, and that reactions to these situations may vary (Horwitz, 2001).
1. 2. 2. Anxiety in the context of foreign language learning
Anxiety in the context of foreign language learning is a relatively recent field of study. Interest in the relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning achievement and performance is a concomitant of the 1970s shift in educational research toward learner differences. This period was marked by researchers beginning to consider learner
characteristics as a possible explanation for differences in foreign language learning outcomes. Therefore, researchers began to examine the potential effects of affective variables, such as motivation, attitude and anxiety, on foreign language learning achievement and performance (e.g. Gardner & Lambert 1972; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). Over the years, the amount of research conducted on the relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning achievement has grown substantially, and quite numerous and diverse are the findings and the suggestions that have been put forward regarding the nature of this relationship.
Early studies into the relationship between anxiety and foreign language learning achievement yielded inconsistent and conflicting results (see Scovel, 1978 for a review of these studies). On the one hand, contrary to what would be logically expected, some studies positively correlated anxiety to foreign language learning achievement and performance (e.g. Chastain, 1975; Kleinmann, 1977). These studies found that anxiety had facilitative effects on the acquisition of specific language skills and the achievement of specific language tasks. Other studies, on the other hand, underlined the negative correlation between anxiety and foreign language learning achievement and performance (e.g. Tucker, Hamayan & Genesee, 1976; Swain and Burnaby, 1976). They found that anxiety had debilitating effects on foreign language learning and viewed it as a true issue of concern in the area of foreign langua ge learning and teaching. Scovel (1978), and after him, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), explained these inconsistent findings in terms of the researchers’ failure to specify the type of anxiety being investigated, as not all anxieties influence foreign language learning, and the lack of proper anxiety measures specific to the context of foreign language learning.
Gardner (1985) also argued that not all types of anxieties influence foreign langua ge learning. He hypothesized that “a construct of anxiety which is not general but instead is specific to the language acquisition context is related to second language achievement” (p.34). This led to the speculation that the anxieties examined in early studies were not specific to language learning, and that foreign language learning produced a unique type of anxiety which is distinct from the rest. This type of anxiety, according to Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1968), stems primarily from immature foreign language abilities:
Adults typically perceive themselves as reasonably intelligent, socially-adept individuals, sensitive to different socio-cultural mores. These assumptions are rarely challenged when communicating in a native language as it is not usually difficult to understand others or to make oneself understood. However, the situation when learning
a foreign language stands in marked contrast. As an individual s communica t io n attempts will be evaluated according to uncertain or even unknown linguistic and socio-cultural standards, second language communication entails risk-taking and is necessarily problematic. Because complex and nonspontaneous mental operations are required in order to communicate at all, any performance in the L2 is likely to challenge an individual s concept as a competent communicator and lead to reticence, self-consciousness, fear, or even panic (p. 128).
In line with this new perspective on anxiety in the context of foreign language, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1968) proposed the unique-anxiety approach, which viewed anxiety in the context of foreign language learning as a situation-specific reaction. Additionally, they designed the Foreign Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) to measure foreign language anxiety levels. Adopting this new approach and using the FLCAS, Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) and many subsequent researchers, found significant negative correlations between anxiety and foreign language learning achievement and performance. Specifically, anxiety was found to have a negative influence on foreign language learners’ confidence, self-esteem and their level of participation inside the language classroom (Horwitz and Cope, 1968).
1. 2. 3. Foreign Language Anxiety
Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) defined foreign language anxiety as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom langua ge learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (p. 128). They conceptualized foreign language anxiety as a situation-specific anxiety which is independent of the other types of anxiety in that it results from the unique conditions under which foreign language learning takes place. However, despite its distinctiveness and independence from the other anxieties, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) argued that foreign language anxiety remains a performance-evaluation-related anxiety and should be viewed in parallel with three other types of performance-related anxieties. These are communication apprehension, or “shyness characterised by fear of or anxiety about communicating with people” (p.127); test anxiety, anxiety that stems from the fear of failure; and the fear of negative evaluation, which is defined as the “apprehension about other’s evaluation, avoidance of evaluative situatio ns, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negative” (Watson & Friend, 1969, p. 449). While these three anxieties constitute essential “conceptual blocks” for understand ing foreign language anxiety, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) emphasized that “foreign
language anxiety is not simply the combination of these fears transferred foreign langua ge learning” (p.128).
Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope’s (1986) theoretical construct of foreign language anxiety has been taken up by many researchers who examined it under various foreign langua ge learning contexts over the years. For example, the effects of foreign language anxiety on language skills have been researched extensively (Young, 1986, 1990; Saito, Garza, & Horwitz,1999, Argaman & Abu-Rabia, 2002; Elkhafaifi, 2005; Woodrow, 2006; Zhang, 2013). Foreign language anxiety has also been probed by multiple studies in learners of different target languages (Horwitz, 1986; Aida, 1994; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991; Sellers, 2000; Elkhafa if i, 2005; Al-saraj, 2014). In addition, the effects of foreign language anxiety on memory and vocabulary development have been analyzed by many studies (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994a, 1994b, 1989). Furthermore, some studies (Onwuegbuzie, Bailey & Daley, 1999; Gregerson & Horwitz, 2002;Ohata, 2005) investigated the factors impacting the levels of foreign langua ge anxiety among foreign language learners. Finally, developing methods for alleviating the feeling of foreign language anxiety among learners of foreign languages has also been attempted by many researchers (Horwitz & Young, 1991, Young, 1991a, Burden, 2004). In short, foreign language anxiety has become the subject of numerous studies making it the most extensively investigated variable in the context of foreign language learning.
However, while attention to foreign language anxiety has been increasing in recent years, a review of the available literature shows that foreign language anxiety-related research has been focused almost entirely on the debilitating effects of foreign language anxiety on beginning and intermediate learners. Very limited are the studies that investigated foreign language anxiety in advanced foreign language learners. This is particularly the case regarding the number of attempts made to probe the phenomenon in non-native foreign langua ge teachers, who, according to Horwitz (1996), merely happen to be the most advanced foreign language learners. The few studies which have been conducted on foreign language anxiety among non-native language teachers have all shown that this category of advanced langua ge learners also experiences feelings of anxiety in relation to foreign language use, and that these feelings have a negative impact on the quality of foreign language classroom instruction as well as on the well-being of the teachers (Horwitz, 1996; Canessa, 2004; Tseng, 2005, Tum, 2010). It is therefore important to further investigate foreign language anxiety in non-native foreign language teachers and attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of
this phenomenon, its scope, and its influence on the quality of instructions inside the foreign language classroom.
1. 3. Study
The present study aims to further our understanding of foreign language anxiety by investigating the phenomenon in non-native foreign language teachers in the Netherlands. Using both quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments, specifically questionna ires and focused, semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, this study will attempt to, first, determine the extent to which non-native foreign language teachers experience feelings of foreign language anxiety in relation to teaching a foreign language. Second, this study will attempt to investigate whether there is any correlation between the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety and the participants’ target language. Third, this study will attempt to identify the causes of potential feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety among foreign langua ge teachers. Fourth, this study will probe the strategies that non-native foreign language teachers employ to cope with the potentially debilitating effects of foreign language teaching anxiety. Finally, this study will attempt to gain insights into the possible classroom implications of the strategies that non-native foreign language teachers employ to cope with their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety.
The main reason for the choice of the focus area for the current study is because I have been personally experiencing feelings of anxiety in relation to foreign language learning as long as I can remember. My first experience with foreign language anxiety goes back to my first years of primary education when I started to learn a second language for the first time. I had to learn five languages throughout my educational career. In fact, my feelings of foreign language anxiety have become acuter the more advanced I became in any of the languages I attempted to learn. Today, being a qualified non-native language teacher of English, I believe that I am still going through the same trials of language-related anxiety I went through as a learner. It took me a while to realize what I have been dealing with, and I am still trying to understand how this phenomenon shapes learning and teaching experiences inside the langua ge classroom. With this study, I attempt to investigate foreign language anxiety in non-native language teachers.
This thesis is specifically geared towards non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers who are going the through the same trials I have experienced both as a foreign language learner and teacher. It is my hope that the findings of this study
render further insights into the underpinnings of this phenomena and how to best cope with it. In addition, I hope that this paper will draw the attention of the teacher educators and teacher training programme designers to the phenomena of foreign language teaching anxiety and to the importance of teaching their students about it as it is having a crucial impact on their performance.
1. 4. Outline
This paper will now proceed to review the available relevant literature on foreign language teaching anxiety. In addition to presenting the current dominant beliefs and speculation about foreign language teaching anxiety, this chapter will also present and critica lly analyze the few relevant empirical studies conducted on this construct of anxiety in terms of the theoretical approaches they adopted, and the methodological research designs they employed. Any possible limitations of the past research into foreign language teaching anxiety will be presented in this chapter. Next, the research questions of the current study will be presented. These will be followed by the methodology, which will include the participants, the instruments and the procedures for the data collection and analysis. Then, the findings of the study will be presented in relation to each research question. Next, the results will be summarised and discussed. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn, and will include the implications of this study, its limitations, and suggestions for further research.
2. Literature Review
2. 1. Foreign language teaching anxiety
Horwitz (1996) was the first to speculate that non-native foreign language teachers are also susceptible to foreign language anxiety. According to Horwitz (1996), foreign langua ge anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers is the result of four main factors. Firstly, foreign language anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers results from the irrational analysis of one’s own abilities in the target language. According to Horwitz, contrary to what many studies have suggested, language anxious individuals do not always have foreign language deficiencies nor are they less proficient in the target language compared to their less anxious counterparts. For her, foreign language anxiety is more salient among perfectionist high achievers in language learning who have the tendency to recognize and magnify small “imperfections in the target language productions” (p. 367). Secondly, foreign langua ge
anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers stems from the spontaneity of today’s language classroom, where it has become difficult for teachers to predict the course which their lesson could take and are more susceptible to language lapses. According to Horwitz, this becomes a major source of anxiety in non-native foreign language teachers for they are strongly motivated about their target language and have “invested considerable time, effort, and emotional energy in the target language” (p. 367). Thirdly, Horwitz believes that teachers who pursue an idealized and unrealistic proficiency level in the target language are “likely to experience anxiety over their own levels of competency no matter how accomplished they are as second language speakers” (p. 367). Finally, foreign language teachers, who are themselves language learners, have likely encountered numerous anxiety- inducing experiences while learning the target language. These experiences, according to Horwitz, may lead to foreign language anxiety. All in all, the factors outlined by Horwitz make it clear that non-native language teachers are not immune to anxiety in relation to foreign language and that it is plausible to conceive of a new foreign language anxiety construct – foreign language teaching anxiety.
A growing number of theoretical and empirical studies have produced evidence that lent further support for the existence of foreign language teaching anxiety in both pre-service and in-service non-native foreign language teachers. For instance, in a study of the relations hip between foreign language anxiety and perfectionism, Gregerson and Horwitz (2002) identified the perfectionist tendencies, such as setting unrealistic language learning goals or overreacting to errors, as a prominent source of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native pre-service foreign language teachers. The researchers also identified the fear of negative evaluation from peers, which is also consistent with perfectionism, as a cause of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native pre-service language teachers. Moreover, Gregerson and Horwitz found that it is the individuals’ emotional reaction to their foreign language limitations which causes anxiety rather than the limitations themselves. Gregerson and Horwitz suggested that the procedures meant to help individuals overcome perfectionis t tendencies may also be effective in alleviating the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers.
In a study of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native teachers and student teachers of English as a foreign language, Tum (2010) examined whether non-native teachers and student teachers of English as a foreign language experience feelings of foreign langua ge teaching anxiety. He also attempted to examine the extent to which foreign language teaching
anxiety affected classroom instruction. Tum found that the phenomenon is prevalent in both inexperienced as well as experienced non-native teachers of English as a foreign language. He also found that, contrary to findings from early studies (e.g. Horwitz, 1996), foreign langua ge teaching anxiety did not have any effect on the teachers’ or the student teachers’ choice of foreign language teaching and learning activities inside the classroom. However, while Tum’s study has clearly further advanced our understanding of the phenomenon, its data was merely quantitative and relied entirely on a structured set of questions which did not yield in a robust data to explain the motives behind the participants’ answers.
In another study, Canessa (2004) investigated foreign language teaching anxiety in in-service language teachers and found that foreign language teaching anxiety correlated with a number of factors. In her study, Canessa examined foreign language teaching anxiety in relation to a number of factors, including the participants’ teaching experience in the target language, cultural background, years of formal education in the target language, and the time spent in a country of the target language. Among her findings, was that the levels of anxiety experienced by foreign language teachers correlated with their teaching experience in that language. Her findings indicated that as the participants’ gained more experience teaching the target language, their anxiety decreased. Additionally, Canessa found that the cultura l background of the participants had a major influence on their anxiety levels. She noted that the role that is traditionally assigned to a teacher may be a crucial factor in elevating anxiety levels. She concluded that the cultural background of some teachers stigmatizes mistakes and put high expectations of teachers which all resulted in high affective responses including foreign language anxiety. However, Canessa found that there was no significant relationship between the anxiety levels and the years spent studying in the target language nor with time spent in target language speaking countries.
2. 2. Potential effects of foreign language teaching anxiety
Past studies have identified several undesirable potential effects of foreign langua ge teaching anxiety. In her early studies of the phenomenon, Horwitz (1992; 1993) provided empirical evidence of the prevalence of foreign language teaching anxiety in her participants. She found that anxious teachers were more likely to avoid intensive language teaching approaches, such as total physical response, role-play activities and classroom discussions. In another study, Horwitz (1996) found that foreign language teaching anxiety negatively affects the quality of classroom input. Based on her study of anxiety in anxious pre-service langua ge
teachers, Horwitz found that high-anxious participants reduced the amount and the quality of the input that they provided their learners with inside the classroom; hence, limiting their learners’ access to spontaneous foreign language in the classroom. This, according to Horwitz, is a result of the anxious teachers’ consciously limiting their target language production in the classroom and during activities in an attempt to hide their language deficiencies. Additiona l ly, Horwitz speculated that foreign language teaching anxiety may result in the teachers transferring their uneasiness and discomfort in using the target language to their students. Finally, Horwitz noted that foreign language anxiety would definitely impact the teacher’s job satisfaction and hence have long-term impact om their well-being.
2. 3. Alleviating foreign language teaching anxiety
Several ways have been suggested by Horwitz (1996) for alleviating the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety. One of the most important ways, according to Horwitz, is that teachers should come to terms with the fact that sometimes foreign language teachers experience feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. For her, language teachers experience foreign language teaching anxiety and it is acceptable to do so. In addition, Horwitz suggests that teachers should be realistic in setting their aims for proficiency and performance in the target language and should be more appreciative of their actual achievement in the target language. Moreover, teachers should further familiarise themselves with the language learning process and ensure to set a language concrete and realistic proficiency improvement plan. Becoming familiar with the language learning process would allow teachers to perceive changes and differences in their target language proficiency which will help them notice some of the difficulties which could be mere natural fluctuations in language proficiency. Simila r ly, setting a proficiency plan would make the learning process less overwhelming. Recognizing the feelings of cultural shock is another way through which foreign language teaching anxiety can be reduced. According to Horwitz, teachers’ whose feelings of anxiety about the target culture, stemming primarily from negative target culture experiences, “may bring negative orientation toward target language use back into the classroom”. Horwitz also advised teachers to learn relaxation techniques which some of which constitute the most anti-anxiety treatments, such as imagining using the target language effectively and calmly inside the classroom. Finally, Horwitz believes that it is essential to provide support to colleagues and beginning teachers and assist them in building teaching confidence.
Despite strong evidence of the existence of foreign language teaching anxiety and its debilitating effects on non-native foreign language teachers, the current body of research into this phenomenon remains considerably small and lacking. Very limited indeed are the attempts which have been made to study foreign language teaching anxiety, and of the limited studies which investigated this phenomenon, hardly any one of them adopted a qualitative design in order to gain emic accounts of the scope and the severity of this phenomenon in non-native foreign language teachers. Indeed, further attempts are required to tap into the experiences of anxious foreign language teachers, their perspectives on the construct and what coping mechanisms they employ in order to deal with their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. Moreover, while foreign language anxiety has been extensively researched in learners with different foreign languages, no study has probed foreign language teaching anxiety among teachers of different target languages. Taking the factor of different target languages into account in the study of foreign language teaching anxiety is crucial, especially because previous similar studies of foreign language anxiety established a correlation between the levels of foreign language anxiety and different foreign languages (Onwuegbuzie et al., 1997; Rodríguez & Abreu, 2003; Yan, 2010).
3. Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to investigate foreign language teaching anxiety in non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers. In addition to determining the scope the severity of this phenomenon, this study also aims to probe the possible sources and the classroom implications of the feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety experienced by non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign langua ge teachers. To this end, this study will attempt to answer the following questions:
1. To what extent do non-native foreign language teachers experience feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety?
2. Are the differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety dependent on the target language of the non-native foreign language teachers?
3. What are the causes of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native foreign language teachers?
4. What are the strategies that non-native foreign language teachers employ to cope with their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety and what possible classroom effects could these strategies have on the quality of instruction?
4. Methodology
4. 1. Participants
A total of 38 non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers participated in the current study. Initially, the study was designed to probe foreign langua ge teaching anxiety in a much higher number of research participants ; a minimum of hundred participants, to be precise. It was however not possible to recruit this large number of participants, mainly due to difficulties obtaining access to pre-service language teachers enrolled in language teacher training programmes at research universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. Only five out of the eight educational institutions contacted about this study replied to our request to conduct the study with the students enrolled in their teacher training programmes, and only four of these institutions granted us the necessary permission to conduct the study and assisted us in inviting the students and in distributing the questionnaires.
4. 1. 1. Non-native pre-service foreign language teachers sample:
27 non-native pre-service foreign language teachers participated in this study. They were recruited from four different institutions in the Netherlands. 9 of them were follow ing one-year intensive first-grade language teacher training programmes offered by two research universities. The other 18 pre-service language-teacher participants were in their third and fourth year of a four-year-long bachelor’s degree programme of teacher education offered by two universities of applied sciences and which, upon completion, grants the students a Dutch grade two teaching qualification.
All the pre-service non-native language teachers who participated in this study were partaking in compulsory internship programmes as part of their training. With these internships, the students are placed under the supervision of a supervising teacher at secondary schools across the Netherlands and are required to carry out a number of assignments per semester, including classroom observations, teaching lessons, and other professiona l development projects. These internships are systematically evaluated by both the supervis ing
teacher and the programme assessors and constitute a central part of the teacher education programmes in the Netherlands.
The majority of the non-native pre-service language teachers who participated in this study were between the ages of 18 and 25 and were mostly females. They were almost all Dutch, although a few of them indicated that they have mixed Moroccan-Dutch or mixed Turkish-Dutch origins. Other countries represented among the participants were Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Romania and the United States of America. Dutch was the native language of the majority of the non-native pre-service language teacher-participants. This is logical since almost all of them were of Dutch origin. The other native languages which were represented in this sample of participants are Arabic, English, Estonian, Frisian, Kurdish, Greek, Romania n and Turkish.
Most of the non-native pre-service language teacher-participants indicated “other” as their previous degree. Some of them had obtained a master, and a few them a bachelor’s degree, before enrolling in their current programmes. None of the pre-service language teachers who were surveyed in this study had a post master’s degree or a Ph.D.
All of the three target languages investigated in this study were represented among the pre-service language teachers. 15 participants were enrolled in English as a Foreign Language teacher training programmes, 7 participants in French programmes and 5 in German programmes. The number of years of formal study of the target language varied among the pre-service non-native language teachers. 9 participants indicated that they had between 1-5 years of formal study of the target language. 13 participants indicated that they had between 6-11 years of formal study of the target language. The remaining 5 non-native pre-service langua ge teacher-participants indicated to have had 12 to17 years of formal study of the target langua ge . All the non-native pre-service language teachers who participated in this study indicated to have had between 1-5 years of experience of teaching their target language.
The questionnaire demonstrated that the majority of the participants indicated that they spent 0-1 years in a country of their target language. Some have indicated that they spent 2-3 years, and none of them spent more than 3 years in a country of their target languages. The questionnaire also demonstrated that the non-native pre-service language teachers had a varied amount of contact with the native speakers of their target language s. Most of the pre-service teacher participants indicated to have had some contact with the native speakers of their language. The rest indicated to have had very little contact with the natives while in the country
of their target language. However, none of the pre-service teacher participants said that they had a substantial contact with the natives of their target language.
One of the items in the questionnaire that the participants had to respond two was about their own assessment of their own command of the target language. The majority (17) of the non-native pre-service language teachers said that their command of the target language is adequate. 10 non-native pre-service language teacher participants indicated that their command of the target language was near native.
4. 1. 2. Non-native beginning in-service foreign language teachers sample:
The 11 non-native beginning in-service foreign language teachers who participated in this study were mostly full-time practitioners who were recruited from different secondary schools in the Netherlands. Some of them, however, were teaching part-time and simultaneously following teacher education programmes at a research university or a univers it y of applied sciences in order to obtain a grade one teaching certificate, which will allow them to teach in Dutch upper secondary schools.
The non-native beginning in-service language teacher participants of the current study were between the ages of 26 and 33. Some were between the age range of 18-25 and only one participant indicated to be 40+. And like the sample of the pre-service teachers, the number of female non-native beginning in-service language teachers who participate in this study was much higher than the males. Additionally, they non-native beginning in-service teachers sample were predominantly from the Netherlands. The other countries represented in this sample of participants are Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.
Most of the non-native beginning in-service language teacher participants had obtained a bachelor’s degree. A few of them had obtained a master’s degree and one indicated “other” as their previous degree. None of the pre-service language teachers who were probed in this study had a post master’s degree or a Ph.D.
The three languages investigated in this study were also all represented in this sample of non-native beginning in-service language teachers. 4 of them were teaching English as a Second Language, 5 were teaching French as a foreign language, and 2 were teachers of German as a foreign language. The results of the questionnaires also indicated that the number of years of formal study of the target language varied among this sample of participants. 7 participants indicated to have had between 14 to 17 years of formal study in the target langua ge.
2 participants indicated to have spent 18+ years studying the target language and another 2 indicated to have spent 6-11 years formally studying the target language. The years of experience of teaching the target language was also varied among the non-native beginning in-service language teachers sample. 9 participants indicated to have had between 1-5 years of experience teaching their target language, and 2 said that they had between 6-11 years of experience teaching the target language.
Results of the questionnaire showed that 7 participants indicated that they spent 2-3 years in a country of their target language. 3 participants said that they spent between 4 to 5 years, and 1 participant said that they spent 6+ years in a country of their target language. The results of the questionnaire also demonstrated that the non-native beginning in-service language teachers had a varied amount of contact with the native speakers of their target languages. Most of the non-native beginning in-service teacher participants (8) indicated to have had some contact with the native speakers of their language. The rest (3) indicated that they had a great deal of contact with the natives while in the country of their target langua ge. None of the participants from this sample of teachers said that they had very little contact with the natives of their target language.
A clear majority of the non-native beginning in-service foreign language teacher participants in this study said that their comment of the target language is near native. Only two of the participants from this sample indicated that their command of the target language was adequate to teach.
4. 2. Instruments 4. 2. 1. Questionnaire
All the participants in the current study filled out an online questionnaire which consisted of 35 questions. The questions were divided into three separate parts: the first two parts of the questionnaire had been previously used in past studies of foreign language anxiety (Horwitz 1996, Canessa, 2004, Tum, 2010). The questionnaire was administered in Englis h, and three different versions were designed according to the target language of the participant s; English, French and German.
The first part of the questionnaire ensured that the participants are eligible for participation in this study and aimed to collect their background information. In this part of the questionnaire, the participants were asked to indicate whether they are non-native (pre-service)
language teachers, and upon eligibility, they were invited to fill in the following informat io n: country of origin, age, gender, native language(s), latest degree obtained, years of formal study of the target language, years of teaching experience of the target language, amount of time spent in a country of the target language, amount of contact with native speakers while in a country of the target language, and their opinions of their command of the target language. The service) teachers who did not meet the requirement to participate in this study, native (pre-service) language teachers, were thanked for their interest in the study and were directed to an end page where they could leave their contact information behind should they be interested in receiving a copy of the final report or a summary of the findings of this study.
The second part of the questionnaire aimed to measure the feelings and the degree of foreign language anxiety among the participants. This part of the questionnaire contained the Teacher Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (TFLAS), which was developed by Horwitz (2008) in order to provide language teachers with a tool to assess their anxiety in relation to langua ge teaching. The scale consists of 18 items to which the participants were invited to respond according to the five-point Linkert scale of “strongly agree”, “agree”, neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree”, and “strongly disagree”.
The third part of the questionnaire was a request to the participants to give their consent to be contacted for a possible follow-up interview in the future. If they granted their consent, the students were directed to a page where they could leave their contact information behind. If they did not wish to further participate in the study, the students were thanked and taken to an end of the survey page.
4. 2. 2. Interview
Post-questionnaire, one-on-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to tap into the target language teaching experiences of the most anxious participants. These interviews were also used in order to learn about the possible causes of foreign langua ge teaching anxiety among the participants and to learn about the coping mechanisms they use to cope with their feelings both inside and outside the classroom. The interviews were conducted in English and were audio-recorded with the consent of the interviewees.
Because the interview was semi-structured, no specific questions were asked to the interviewees. Instead, the interviews consisted of different questions and prompts which were dependent on the individual experiences of the interviewees. The interviews were nonetheless uniform in that all of the questions and the prompts fell under the following topic areas:
- The participants’ feelings while speaking the target language
- The causes of the feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety
- The effects of these feelings and the possible remedies or coping mechanisms
- (target) Language learning and teaching history
- Attitude towards mistakes and error correction
- Attitude to target language and culture
- Problem and difficult areas as a language learner and teacher
- Likes and dislikes of the teaching profession
- Panning of lessons
- Teaching approaches
- Face
4. 3. Procedures 4. 3. 1. Data collection
A period of 4 months, from February 1, 2018 through May 30, 2018, was allowed for data collection for this study, and the process consisted of three phases:
Phase 1: Invitations
Data collection process for this study was initiated with a request email to the research universities and the universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands that offer teacher training courses. The email contained details of the study, including all the phases for data collection and ethical considerations. Upon receiving a positive reply from the institutions, an email invitation was sent to the potential participants. The email included details of the study, explained to the participants what is needed from them, and included a link to the questionna ire. And as is the case with any research carried with participants, the invit ation assured the participants of anonymity, informed them that their participation in the study is voluntary and that they reserve the right to withdraw at any stage of the study and have their contribut io n discarded. Alternatively, one institution invited the researchers to talk to the participants about the study face-to-face. These participants were provided with all the details of the project and were given the opportunity to ask questions and were given the link at the end.
A similar procedure was followed to recruit non-native beginning in-service langua ge teachers. While some were contacted through schools, others, whose contact information was
obtained through acquaintances and colleagues with their consent, were approached through an invitation email similar to that which was sent to the non-native pre-service langua ge teachers.
Phase 2: Online questionnaire:
The link provided to the participants in the invitation led to an online questionna ire which was designed using Qualtrics. Qualtrics is a premium online survey software into which access was granted by the University of Amsterdam. In addition to the simplicity and the efficacity of Qualtrics in helping the researchers build, distribute and conduct some prelimi nar y analysis of the data, the tool allowed the researchers to monitor the engagement with the survey in real time, helping them learn when to send reminder emails to the participants when necessary in order to get the most participation rate possible for this study. This questionna ire was piloted twice with five master’s students at the University of Amsterdam. These students were either practicing language teachers or had experience teaching languages. Based on these two pilots, minor modification and improvement were introduced to the survey, specifically in the wording and layout.
Qualtrics collected a total of 63 responses in the period of two months which was allowed for the questionnaire to be filled by the participants. However, 25 responses were unfortunately incomplete or partially filled. These responses were manually removed by the researchers leaving us with a total of complete 38 valid responses. These were analyzed using Qualtrics’s reports option and gave us a clear view of the general levels of foreign langua ge teaching anxiety among the respondents and the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety of each respondent.
Phase 3: Interviews
Respondents whose responses indicated that they were experiencing high levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, and who had given their consent to be contacted for the follow-up interviews, were invited to in-depth, one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. These interviews lasted for approximately one hour each and yielded in in-depth qualitative data.
One-on-one interviews were chosen for this study because the researchers wanted to account for three main factors which could have undermined the quality of the data collected. To start with, anxiety is a sensitive subject matter, and in the context of this study, it has become a personal and a potentially embarrassing matter. One-on-one interviews allowed the
researchers to build some personal rapport with the participants. This was necessary in order to avoid issues of face and allow the respondents to share their personal feelings, experiences and opinions in a much greater depth and detail. The researchers decided that this would be difficult to achieve in focused group interviews. Moreover, one-on-ones allowed the researchers the flexibility to be able to interview the participants at the time and the location that suited them best. This was needed because the interviews coincided with the examina t io n period, which made the logistics of gathering all the 5 participants together at one time somewhat complex. Furthermore, anonymity was one of the assurances of the researchers to the participants. Through the interviews, the researchers were aiming to obtain honest responses which were in many ways personal responses. One-on-one interviews helped the researchers obtain such information while maintaining the strictest confidentiality, which would have been difficult to achieve otherwise. Finally, One-on-one this set up of the interviews provided each interviewee with the necessary time to thoroughly explore and explain their feelings and experiences; helping the researchers gain insights into the main sources and effects of foreign language anxiety on the participants.
4. 3. 2. Data analysis
The participants’ replies to the statements in the TFLAS were analyzed in order to measure the scope and the severity of their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. TFLAS consists of 18 questions which were scored from “1” (strongly agree) to “5” (strongly disagree). TFLAS questions 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17 and 18 were reverse scored. Therefore, for these questions, participants’ responses of “5” were reversed to “1”, “4” to “2”, “1” to “5”, and “2” to “4”. “3” remained as it is. To determine individual participants’ levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, their total score (maximum 90) was divided by 18 (the number of items in the TFLAS). The participants were categorized using Horwitz (2008) measuring guidelines and descriptors. Therefore, participants with a score below 3 were considered as experiencing low levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, participants whose score was around 3 were considered as experiencing slight levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, and participants with an average score near or above 4 were considered as experienc ing high levels of foreign language teaching anxiety.
Descriptive statistics were used to measure the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety for all of the participants in this study. Therefore, the mean scores and the standard deviations were calculated for all the participants. Participants whose anxiety score was higher
than the sum of the mean plus one standard deviation were categorized as “high-anxio us ”. Participants whose anxiety scores were lower than the sum of the mean plus one standard deviation were categorized as “low-anxious”. Finally, participants whose score fell between the values set for high-anxious and low-anxious were groups as “mid-anxious”.
In order to measure differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety between non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers, the groups’ scores were calculated separately. In other words, the mean scores and the standard deviations were calculated again for each group separately, and the same procedure was used in order to categorize the participants into the three categories of “high-anxious”, “mid-anxious” and “low “mid-anxious”.
Participants responses were also clustered according to their target languages. As was described earlier, three separate versions of the same questionnaire were distributed among the participants in this study, and each one was geared towards the teachers of a different langua ge, specifically English, French and German. The mean and the standard deviations were also calculated for the scores of the participants in each of the target language clusters. The same procedure was again used in order to group the participants in each language; based on the score they exhibited they were categorized as “high anxious”, “mid-anxious”, and “low anxious”.
The participants’ interview responses were, for the most part, not transcribed verbatim. Their responses were listened to multiple times, studied and analyzed carefully in terms of keywords and frequency. In addition, important quotes from the interviews were noted down word for word. However, some of the quotes included herein are not verbatim quotes from the interviewees but notes from the analysis of the interviews.
5. Results
This study sought to investigate foreign language teaching anxiety in non-native pre-service and beginning in-pre-service foreign language teachers in the Netherlands. Specifica lly, this study attempted to: determine: (1) the extent to which non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers experience feelings of anxiety in relation to foreign language teaching; (2) examine the extent to which foreign language teaching anxiety differed across English, French and German; (3) probe the causes of foreign language teaching anxiet y; (4) learn about the strategies that non-native pre-service and beginning in-service langua ge teachers employ to cope with the potentially debilitating effects of foreign language teaching
anxiety; and (5) gain insights into the possible classroom implications of the strategies that non-native preservice and beginning in-service foreign language teachers employ to cope with their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. Both quantitative and in-depth qualitat i ve data was collected from 38 non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign langua ge teachers in the Netherlands. In this section, the findings of this study will be presented in relation to each research question.
5. 1. To what extent do non-native foreign language teachers experience feelings of foreign
language teaching anxiety?
The findings of the current study indicate that the non-native foreign language teachers who participated in this study experience feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. They were all found to experience the phenomenon at varying levels. In other words, some participants were found to experience high levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, some were found to experience average levels of foreign language teaching anxiety, and some were found to experience low levels of foreign language teaching anxiety. Table 1 represents the number of participants, the mean anxiety score, the standard deviation, the number of low-anxious participants, the number mid-low-anxious participants, the number of high-anxio us participants, and the minimum and maximum anxiety scores recorded by this study.
Table 1: Foreign language teaching anxiety levels in non-native pre-service and beginning in-service
foreign language teachers
Taking into account the minimum average (1.1) and maximum average (4.6) of foreign language teaching anxiety recorded by the TFLAS, it becomes clear that the non-native pre-service and beginning in-pre-service foreign language teachers who participated in this study experienced varying degrees of foreign language teaching anxiety. The data shows that the majority of the participants experienced average levels of foreign language teaching anxiety. However, a substantial number of the non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teacher participants were found to be highly anxious.
As was described earlier, the participants in this study were 27 non-native pre-service foreign language teachers and 11 non-native beginning in-service foreign language teachers.
Number of participants Mean Standard Deviation Low-anxious Mid-anxious High-anxious Min/max 38 2.88 0.88 9 18 11 1.1/4.6
In order to gain insights into potential differences in anxiety levels among these two groups, it was important to calculate their TFLAS scores separately. Therefore, the scores mean and the standard deviations were calculated for each group, and they were again categorized according to their levels of anxiety. Table 2 represents the two groups surveyed in this study, and for each group, the number of participants, the mean anxiety score, the standard deviation, number of low-anxious participants, number average-anxious participants, number of high-anxio us participants.
Table 2: Differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety in non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers
Comparing the final scores of the TFLAS, it becomes clear that there are considerable differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety experienced by the two groups surveyed in this study. The table shows that non-native pre-service language teachers who participated in this study were found to experience higher levels of foreign language teaching anxiety compared to the non-native pre-service beginning language teacher participants.
In conclusion, the findings of this study unequivocally demonstrate that both non-native pre-service and beginning in-service language teachers experience feeling of anxiety in relation to the teaching a foreign language. The results also demonstrated that the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety varied among all of the participants. In addition, the results of the current study suggest that non-native pre-service language teachers are inclined to experience more anxiousness with regards to foreign language teaching compared to the non-native beginning language teachers.
5. 2. Do difference in non-native foreign language teachers’ feelings of foreign language
teaching anxiety correlate with different target languages?
The present study examined the extent to which the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety reported by the participants correlated with their different target languages. For this aim, the participants’ responses were clustered according to their target languages. Therefore, it was possible to calculate the differences in foreign language teaching anxiety levels across
Participants Number of participants Mean Standard deviation Low anxiety Average anxiety High anxiety Pre-service teachers 27 3.04 0.91 6 16 5 In-service teachers 11 2.49 0.72 2 7 2
the participants of three different target languages. Table 3 represents the different target language examined in this study, and for each target language, the number of participants, the mean anxiety score, the standard deviation, number of low-anxious participants, number average-anxious participants, number of high-anxious participants.
Target language Number of participants Mean Standard deviation Low anxiety Average anxiety High anxiety English 19 2.43 0.79 3 10 6 French 12 3.40 0.82 2 7 3 German 7 3.20 0.66 1 5 1
Table 2: Differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety in non-native pre-service and
beginning in-service teachers of English, French and German
The results of this study showed there were statistically significant differences in the levels of foreign language teaching anxiety between the participants of this study based on their target language. Participants whose target language was English were found to be the least anxious among all of the participants with a mean score of 2.43. Participants whose target language was French were found to be the most anxious with a mean score of 3.40. Non-native German teacher participants were also found to be experiencing significant levels of foreign language teaching anxiety with a mean score f 3.20.
5. 3. What are the potential sources of foreign language teaching anxiety among non-native
foreign language teachers?
Five highly anxious non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign langua ge teachers have been interviewed in an attempt to learn about the possible causes of their feelings of anxiety related to foreign language teaching. The interviewees mentioned multiple sources of their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. The analysis of the data from the interviews demonstrates that while some sources of foreign language teaching anxiety might be common among all foreign language teachers, some sources appear to be unique to certain individuals. Since this study did not find any significant discrepancies between the causes of anxiety among non-native pre-service and beginning in-service foreign language teachers, the results are presented according to each source category and substantiated by quotes from the interviewees and notes from the analysis of the interviews.
All the five interviewees thought that their foreign language teaching anxiety stems primarily from their fear of making mistakes. They were unanimous in believing that a language teacher should strive to speak the target language accurately in the classroom. They mentioned fears of “speaking with mistakes”, “mispronouncing words” and “incorrect grammar”. Their apprehension about making mistakes in the target language is evidenced by these example responses.
“I’m stressed, like, super stressed. What if one of the students corrects my mistake or what if I confuse everybody?”
“Because you want to be competent and you do not want to say that you are not any good at it. What if I make a drastic mistake and blow everything? Especially immediate
giveaways like articles. That will demonstrate that you are not as good as you should be.”
“When I teach children and also adolescents I am really afraid that I will make a mistake. It makes me feel nervous and I start talking very quickly and that is not really good.” Perception of own competence in the target language
The participants’ interview responses showed that their own perception of their target language competence is a major source of their feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety. 4 out of the 5 respondents who were interviewed in this study expressed dissatisfaction with their current level of the target language proficiency. In particular, they talked about “difficulties” with the target language and expressed their concern about their inability to “speak fluently” and “with precision” and “native-like”, despite having spent a considerable amount of time learning the language.
“What I also have as a characteristic of mine is that I am a perfectionist…plus my low self-esteem with language. I never feel I am enough, in Dutch as well.”
“Other people tell me I am a competent speaker of German, they say your German is great. Native speakers, especially. I am still like…hmm…but how competent am I?” “…I would love people to think like ooh… you know… like, you’re German! Or, like, if you have a German teacher she should sound like she is from Germany or she should speak perfect German. You should not be like: wow, what a terrible American accent when she speaks German. I don’t want to say that it is embarrassing, but I feel that that is
