| This dissertation study represents an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of anxiety reduction techniques on student foreign language anxiety and on student language achievement. The main objective is to determine whether such techniques can be a useful tool in the foreign language classroom.; More than 225 second-semester German students at the University of Texas at Austin participated in the study in the spring semester of 1992. After week 7 of the semester, students were taught different anxiety reduction techniques in one class period. Practice of the respective anxiety reduction techniques was then given as a homework assignment. At the end of the semester, students completed a questionnaire providing answers about their reactions to the use of anxiety reduction techniques. Both, anxiety and achievement, were measured twice: anxiety with a modified version of Horwitz's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and student achievement with standardized second-semester tests commonly used by the Department of Germanic Languages at the University of Texas at Austin.; Repeated-measures analysis of variance and one-way ANOVAs were used to distinguish differences between treatment groups. Multiple regression was used to examine individual differences. Four groups received an individual anxiety reduction technique, consisting of visual imagery, assertiveness training, mantra concentration and autogenic training respectively. A fifth group was treated with a combination of assertiveness training and autogenic training, and a sixth group served as a control group receiving no treatment at all.; All groups that received anxiety reduction techniques showed significantly lower anxiety levels than the control group. However, no anxiety reduction technique proved to be significantly different from any other anxiety reduction technique. As far as achievement was concerned, one technique, mantra concentration, showed significantly better results than all the other techniques. Students overwhelmingly approved the use of anxiety reduction techniques.; Findings suggested that anxiety reduction techniques can be effective in the foreign language classroom: they helped students reduce their anxiety, and mantra concentration had positive effects on grade improvement. However, further research is necessary to better determine the use of these and other anxiety reduction techniques in the classroom. |
