A Study Investigating How Language Anxiety Affects Saudi Students Test Performance - Essay Example

A Study Investigating How Language Anxiety Affects Saudi Test Performance A Study Investigating How LanguageAnxiety Affects Saudi Students’ Test Performance Abstract Language anxiety is defined as the various types of fears, worries, or nervousness that are related to the learning process among the students. It may also refer to the worries or fears experienced by people while using a foreign language to communicate. Researchers for a long time have conducted numerous studies that relates to language anxiety among foreign users. How the language barrier affects the level of understanding of the topic under discussion, and the subsequent ease of the conversation has formed a basis for new study. Experts who have conducted studies on the relationship between language anxiety and performance have indicated the existence of a negative relationship between language barrier and the overall performance of a learner. To an extent, the effects of language anxiety severely affect the performance of a learner. The extent of these effects is obvious during language tests, when learners are put under the pressure of time constraints and of success. This study focused on the issue of language anxiety and its effects on Saudi learners’ test performance. A questionnaire was used to identify learners’ different levels of language anxiety. Later, the learners were subjected to a standardised test to determine their anxiety levels. The results from the study indicated that the correlation between anxiety scores and test had adverse effects on the students’ performance in the tests. From the findings, suggestions were made on the need for more attention to be made on language anxiety. Methods of reducing language anxiety among students during tests to improve their performance are also suggested. Introduction Language anxiety, comprising of the various types of fears, worries, or nervousness related to learning or using a foreign language in communication has been the subject of research for a long time. The feeling of discomfort associated with a person using a foreign language both in learning and communication in comparison to the ease of using mother tongue is justified. Experts in the field of anxiety and psychology hold that learning anxiety successfully has negative effects in the performance of a student, which at times can lead to adverse results. The ease of understanding questions in a test, the time taken in understanding and answering a particular question and the comfort while answering questions are the various factors that affect the level of performance of a student. Time is essential in tests as success is determined by the ability to answer either all or most of the questions. If a student cannot tackle the entire test, the likelihood of that student scoring highly is constrained. Foreign languages are quite hard to understand, while communicating is equally disturbing. A student undertaking a test using a foreign language is constrained by time factor in performing in the test. To test the influence of language anxiety in the performance of a student, a study was conducted on the effects of language anxiety on performance of Saudi Arabia students. Data from the study showed that there was an inverse ratio between a learner’s language anxiety levels and the test score of the student. The results from the study confirmed the negative effects of language anxiety on learners’ performance. Literature Review Anxiety is classified into two broad categories, which are important in understanding how anxiety is formed and how to maintain anxiety. Trait anxiety, referred to as anxiety that is chronic and persuasive and cutting across situations is not triggered by any form of specific events. This form of anxiety is associated with a number of anxiety disorders that include generalized anxiety and social phobia. State anxiety refers to an anxiety that occurs in in different yet specified situations, which is usually caused by a number of factors. This form of anxiety is associated with students undertaking a test or students subjected to a foreign language. Students exhibiting high levels of state anxiety are likely to be victims of trait anxiety, which is associated with significant emotional problems. There is a likelihood of such students being victims of depression, a condition only treated by a psychiatrist. This shows how serious any form of anxiety is among students. Learners may experience a mental block when it comes to foreign language learning, even though such people may be good learners given a different context. Anxiety has been pointed out as the main issue that deters even the brightest students from achieving their learning goals and achieving their objectives. Acute levels of anxiety have been found to have an association with depression among students. Although the real cause of anxiety among students has not been successfully found out, evidence has showed that student testing positive to anxiety tend to have high levels of general anxiety, which are likely to be accelerated during test evaluation exercises. Likewise, foreign students are likely to be affected by a number of anxiety conditions when facing a test. Repetition in difficulty of a test, contributed by the failure to understand a foreign language more than often causes high levels of anxiety among the students, constraining their abilities of passing tests. Not only does language increase levels of anxiety among student, graduation is another contributor to anxiety among students. Foreign students are not only affected by the problem of understanding tests and time taken in tests, they are also affected by the anxiety that comes with the graduation process. Exams and tests influence the grade that a student graduates with after college. With such an understanding and realization, a foreign student is exerted to more forms of anxiety than the normal language anxiety. However, in the case of this paper, the research narrows down to the contribution of language anxiety to poor performance among foreign students. According to Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope (1986), anxiety refers to the subjective feeling of worry, tension, nervousness and apprehension brought on by the arousal of the automatic nervous system. This means that anxiety is a relative process to the nervous system of an individual. More importantly, it is a reflex action that is unavoidable by a person subjected to conditions likely to cause anxiety. Academically, Trang (2012) looks at the phenomenon of academic anxiety as a concept that unifies all kinds of anxieties experienced by learners in schools and learning institutions. In the context of language learning, this would be referred to as a specific anxiety reaction. Just as the feeling of anxiety would hinder success in mathematics and science, it could also prevent foreign language learners from achieving their objectives (Campbell & Shaw, 1994; Liu & Huang, 2011). Extensive research has been conducted on foreign language classrooms and the levels of anxiety among the foreign students in comparison to the local students. Acknowledging the importance of factors affecting anxiety with regard to academic performance, Horwitz et al. (1986) observe that foreign language anxiety involves the evaluation of both social interaction and academic performance. Therefore, it would be critical to evaluate the factors observable in a classroom context to understand the traits exhibited by students suffering from foreign language anxiety. Communication apprehension describes a form of shyness that arises from the anxiety or fear of communicating with others. This apprehension may manifest itself in the fear of speaking in groups, called oral communication anxiety; in the fear of communicating in public, called stage fright; or in the fear of learning or listening to a spoken message, called receiver anxiety (Arnaiz & Guillen, 2012; Ewald, 2007). Test anxiety describes the fear of failure in measures of academic performance (Aydin, Yavuz & Yesilyurt, 2007). Students with test anxiety often have unrealistic goals and experience a feeling of failure when they do not perform at the level anticipated. In foreign language classes, which test students in various competencies and at a greater frequency, even the most prepared students sometimes fail, hence provoking anxiety among language students. Arnaiz and Guillen (2012) further observe that students with foreign language anxiety would avoid tackling questions that seem difficult, which considerably increases their chances of scoring poorly in the tests. Subsequent fear of negative evaluation broadens the scope covered by test anxiety as it also accounts for situations outside the test context, which includes social evaluations and communication in foreign language classes (Liu, 2006). The evaluator in this case could be either the teacher or the fellow students in the class. Acknowledging the effect of these factors, Howard et al. (1986) conclude that foreign language anxiety impedes the development of second language fluency as well as performance. This research contradicts the studies documented by Mesri (2012), which indicate that such anxieties have a positive or neutral effect on learning. The evaluated research studies support and postulate that foreign language anxiety affects academic performance. Different observers have widely observed and unanimously agreed that high foreign language anxiety negatively impacts student academic performance, especially during tests (Birjandi & Alemi, 2010; Hewitt & Stephenson, 2012; In’nami, 2006). Consequently, the researchers (Arnaiz & Guillen, 2012; Ewald, 2007; Horwitz et al. 1986; Trang 2012) have drawn recommendations on the need to prevent this form of anxiety among students. However, there seems to be an existence of a knowledge gap due to an absence of studies based on language anxiety and its effects on learners in Saudi contexts. It is due to these factors that prompted this study, which narrowed down on the influence of language anxiety on students. More importantly, the study sought to answer the question, “How does language anxiety affect Saudi students’ test performance? Data Collection The research site used to conduct this research was a Saudi Arabia intermediate school. The participants of the exercise were 50 EFL Saudi students, who had been studying English for 5-6 years. The respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire which was adapted from the anxiety scale used by Horwitz et al. (1986), provided in Appendix A. The purpose of this questionnaire was to identify the levels of language anxiety among the respondent students. Based on the score from the questionnaire, students were divided into three groups which include high anxiety that had 15 students with the highest scores, low anxiety comprising of 15 students scoring lowest levels and neutral, who did not show any form of anxiety levels, comprising of the remaining 20 students. Since the questionnaire was initially drafted in English, and the respondents had little understanding of the English, items in the questionnaire were translated into Arabic to guarantee students’ comprehension. The next step required the students to take a test which focused on testing the various aspects of students in understanding English. The test included sections on different aspects and skills of English to ensure that the effects of language anxiety were not on any single aspect or skill. The test used in this study was the English Language Preliminary Exam for Second Intermediate Grade, which was used at Riyadh Intermediate School for Second Term 2012, provided in Appendix B. The test lasted for duration of 90 minutes, although a student was free to leave after completion of the test. The test contained 45 key items divided into 5 parts. The maximum mark for the test was 30. Finally, the results of the test were collated with the index of language anxiety of those students to reveal whether students’ anxiety is directly proportional or inversely proportional to their test performance. The calculations of the students’ anxiety index and the presentation of results distribution were conducted with the assistance of the SPSS software. This, together with the anxiety scale that Horwitz et al. (1986) had used enhanced the reliability of the study. To ensure that the results were correct, the results were cross checked. Results from the Study The anxiety score among the students who took the test ranged from 48 to 152. The scores form the test ranged from 8 to 30 as indicated in table of results in Appendix F. The overall tests mean score of all the students was 20.66 points. The mean for the high anxiety group was 15.40 points, while the low anxiety group ranged at 25.83points. The distribution of test scores within the two groups is presented in the graphs below. Discussion of Study Results It is clear from the results that students’ language anxiety was inversely proportional to their test performance. The mean score of the low anxiety group was much higher than that of the high anxiety group, indicating that the group that had acknowledged to have had anxiety problems in the answering of tests still faced the same problem during this particular test. Although there was actually one student in the low anxiety group who scored lowly in the test, student number 41, test score who scored 16/30, this was just an exceptional case. Various factors could have contributed to this exceptional performance, including thorough understanding of the questions. Preparedness was not a found to have any influence in the test. All other students in the low anxiety group obtained a score of at least 21/30. The same phenomenon could be seen within the high anxiety group of students who managed a score that quite high. Students 6, 10, and 14 achieved quite high test scores, scoring as high as 23, 28, and 27/30 respectively. However, the typical performance in this group was relatively low in reference to earlier anticipation. These results confirmed findings from previous researches by different scholars such as Arnaiz & Guillen (2012), Aydin, Yavuz & Yesilyurt (2007), or Howard et al. (1986). However, they substantially differed with findings by Mesri (2012) who did not find a single correlation between anxiety levels and student test performance. From the study though, the cases of exceptional students in each group ask for more exploration, since their performance might be influenced by factors other than language anxiety. As noted earlier, not only is performance linked to anxiety, other factors influence the level of performance of a student such as preparedness, general understanding of the test and reasons for sitting for the test. As pointed out earlier, graduation is a major contributor to increased levels of anxiety among students. Since this test was not meant for graduation purposes, this could be an explanation of the various exceptional cases reported by the study. The results clearly revealed the relationship between language anxiety and learners’ test performance, thus highlighting the need to deal with language anxiety in order to help learners perform better in a foreign language test and general grade after graduation. This forms the basis for further study in the field. Since there is no particular agreement that has been reached as to who should bear the brunt of the task of lessening language anxiety, both the teacher and the learners are assumed to take the due responsibility. Focusing on the role of teachers in curbing foreign language anxiety among their students, results from research conducted by Liu & Jackson, (2008) and Mesri, (2012) fail to articulate the role of the students themselves in preventing this occurrence. Liu (2006) also provides a number of solutions applicable by a teacher aimed at reducing language anxiety among the students. Arguments raised by the researcher in dealing with language anxiety problems of students are vested in the reality of the teacher as being the only fluent speaker in the classroom context. With learner autonomy becoming more and more popular in educational contexts, it seems unlikely that only the teacher should, or be able to, cope with the problem of learners’ language anxiety. Little room has been left to the students to deal with the problem due to limited opportunities available for them to exploit. The only way they could overcome this is by exhibiting self confidence in oral and written language. Conclusion The study was generally focused on the effects of language anxiety among foreign students on their performance. General performance in this case refers to the end results of a student after graduation. More specifically however, the study narrowed down to a single test that was used to represent the overall influence of language barrier among students. The research and data collected was done to investigate language anxiety among Saudi students and its effects on the students’ test performance. Although the study focused on the performance of the particular test, the results could be extrapolated to show the influence of the language anxiety on the overall performance of the student. It was found that language anxiety adversely affected students’ test performance in the test. Anxiety is caused by various factors such as poor understanding of the questions in the test, the time taken by the students in understanding the various questions and answering them and the expectations of the final results after the study. The results from the study highlighted the need to come up with different methods of reducing anxiety levels among foreign students that are likely to reduce language anxiety to enhance learners’ performance in foreign languages. Proposed methods of reducing the anxiety levels are focused on individual students. However, the existence of exceptional students suggested the need for further study into other factors influencing test performance, not necessarily on language anxiety. Future studies may also focus on further methods of reducing anxiety levels among students undertaking foreign languages. The responsibility of the party that is supposed to take the biggest burden of reducing anxiety levels among students forms a basis for further studies too. The biggest question however is who among the two parties involved in the learning process bears the biggest burden of reducing the level of anxiety among the students, is it the teachers or students themselves? References Top of Form Arnaiz, P. & Guillen, F. (2012). Foreign language anxiety in a Spanish university setting: Interpersonal differences. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 17(1), 5-26. Aydin, S., Yavuz, F. & Yesilyurt, S. (2007). Test anxiety in foreign language learning. 145-160. Retrieved 26 February 2013 from http://sbe.balikesir.edu.tr/dergi/edergi/c9s16/makale/c9s16m8.pdf Birjandi, P. & Alemi, M. (2010). The Impact of Test Anxiety on Test Performance among Iranian EFL Learners. BRAIN: Broad Research in Artificial Intelligence & Neuroscience, Vol. 1, Issue 4, pp. 44-58. Campbell, C. M., & Shaw, V. M. (1994). Language anxiety and gender differences in adult second language learners: Exploring the relationship. In C. A. Klee (Ed.), Faces in a crowd: The individual learner in multisection courses (pp. 215-243). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Ewald, J. D. (2007). Foreign language learning anxiety in upper-level classes: Involving students as researchers. Foreign Language Annals, 40, 122-142. Hewitt, E. & Stephenson, J. (2012). Foreign Language Anxiety and Oral Exam Performance: A Replication of Phillips’s MLJ Study. Modern Language Journal, Vol. 96, Issue 2, pp. 170-189. Horwitz, E.K., Horwitz, M.B., & Cope, J. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 125-132. In’nami, Y. (2006). The effects of test anxiety on listening test performance. System, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 317-340. Liu, M. & Huang, W. (2011). An exploration of foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation. Education Research International. Retrieved 25 February 2013 from http://www.hindawi.com/journals/edu/2011/493167/ Liu, M. & Jackson, J. (2008). An exploration of Chinese EFL learners unwillingness to communicate and foreign language anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, 92(1), 71-86. Liu, M. (2006). Anxiety in EFL classrooms: causes and consequences. TESL Reporter, 39, 13-32. Mesri, F. (2012). The relationship between gender and Iranian EFL learners’ foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2(6), 147-156. Trang, T. T. T. (2012). A review of Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope’s theory of foreign language anxiety and the challenges of the theory. English Language Teaching, 5(1), 69 – 75. APPENDIX A The questionnaire APPENDIX B The test APPENDIX C A signed consent form APPENDIX D A completed questionnaire APPENDIX E A completed test APPENDIX F Table of results NUMBER ANXIETY SCORE TEST SCORE 1 152 12 2 146 8 3 133 13 4 126 10 5 122 9 6 113 23 7 112 15 8 107 14 9 100 9 10 99 28 11 96 15.5 12 93 16 13 93 15 14 93 27 15 91 16.5 16 89 17 17 88 29 18 86 12 19 85 17.5 20 83 18 21 82 20 22 80 29.5 23 78 19 24 78 18 25 77 22 26 74 20 27 72 24 28 72 19 29 72 21.5 30 71 15 31 70 23 32 70 22 33 70 23 34 69 21 35 69 24 36 67 21 37 66 24.5 38 64 27 39 62 25 40 61 25.5 41 60 16 42 60 30 43 58 27 44 57 28 45 56 26 46 55 29.5 47 55 21 48 52 30 49 50 28 50 48 29 Read More