Coping With Foreign Language Anxiety--From The Perspective Of Learners

This study examines the factors that are likely to arouse language anxiety in a foreign language classroom and the ways to enhance college students' self-awareness of this affective variable. By reviewing the literature on the nature and roles of foreign language classroom anxiety, and utilizing the modified Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, we have confirmed the negative relationships between language anxiety and foreign language achievement. That is, those who reported to have more foreign language anxiety tended to receive lower exam grades than the ones with less anxiety. In the present study, language anxiety is explored, discussed and analyzed from the perspective of the learner, not from the perspective of the instructors. Learners' strategies to deal with anxiety help increase our understanding of language learning anxiety from the learner's perspective and convey profound insights into classroom instructions and management. Since anxiety can have profound effects on foreign language learning and performance, it is important for the instructor as well as the learners themselves to be able to identify particularly anxious learners in foreign language class.