Research has shown that learning a second learning in most instances has been termed as a dreadful occurrence. Overall pressure and nervousness among learners to excel and perform remarkably better cause them higher levels of anxiety believed to be specific to second language lessons. According to Hashemi (2011), a majority of the individuals considered to be excellent students in various subjects and courses often experiences the significant height of anxiety when it comes to the process of second language learning. It is further believed to have the potential of causing a psychological obstruct in the desire to acquire new information. Both teachers and the students tend to feel that second language learning anxiety is the highest huddle to overcome when trying to learn a language other than their own. Second language anxiety thus refers to specific anxiety-inducing situations. The levels of anxiety correlated with second language learning and overall students’ performances. Diverse kinds of anxieties among them, math class, test and even audience anxieties have widely been focused in research. Most studies have shown that anxiety is correlated to second language performance (Onwuegbuzie, Bailey & Daley, 2000). Second language anxiety is precisely a precise reaction to nervousness in any classroom offering a target language. The study will evaluate how anxiety affects second language learning and how being a second language learner causes anxiety in communication and public speaking.
Shams (2006) established that those learners believed to have the higher degree of anxiety associated with second language learning often peruse and focus on the grammatical constructions that are relatively less complex than those students who are less anxious. Those students under a relaxed personal condition tend to benefit the most from second language classroom compares to the international students who have developed a certain level of anxiety. Throughout this phase of intense nervousness, the learners tend to experience a mixed feeling of dread and worry, sweat, become forgetful and have troubles concentrating both in the classroom and in public. All these psycho-physiological symptoms have been shown to hinder the language learning experience.
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In a research by Kitano (2001), it is evident that there are various factors have been shown to result in anxiety related to the process of second language learning. The first element is related to the apprehension of pessimistic assessment. In most occasions, the student’s fear is often brought about by the setting of the second language class where the learners are continuously being assessed. The evaluation of second language students ought to be done by a fluent speaker in the classroom, teachers. Criticism and evaluation from the peers is also another primary cause of anxiety (Williams & Andrade, 2008). Anxious learners often believe that their level of skills in language was much weaker compared to their colleagues and thus was looked down upon by them. They are also frightened of speaking out aloud before their peers or in the class during the speaking practices.
The other leading cause of second language learning anxiety has been argued to be the learner’s self-opinion of speaking capability in a second language (Zia & Sulan, 2015). Majority of the students’ apprehension originates from the self-perception of capability. Further, they often compare their level of ability to that of the indigenous speakers of the second language that results to the greater degree of humiliation that they might be articulating incorrectly like is the case with the residents. Among the skills and knowledge that foreign learners are taught in the classroom, speaking capability is apparently considered to be most imperative. Kitano (2001) posits that the speaking skills are always one of the first things that most students tend to make a comparison to with their peers, native speakers, and teachers. Low self-awareness of the learners to speaking capability is a significant causal factor of the second language learner anxiety.
Evidently, significant levels of apprehension might also originate from student’s dread of tests. Majority of these students have been shown to experience test anxiety (Williams & Andrade, 2008). In a situation where numerous grammar items must be remembered, most students often confirm that they understood the sentence structure, however; they forget them when in the classroom taking tests. Anxiety is generated when the students remember, after the tests, that they have made errors and wrote a wrong answer as a result of their tenseness in an examination. Ohata, (2005) asserts that test anxiety has further been argued to be initiated by the type of questions included in the tests. If it happens that the learners have never come across such unfamiliar questions formats or even structures, then, they end up experiencing significant levels of test nervousness in a particular test and any other test in the future. In language testing, the more strange and vague the test and format becomes and the student’s evaluation degree, the more the learner’s anxiety is generated.
Studying has further been argued to have the potential to cause test anxiety (Suleimenova, 2013). There are a group of students who might study a lot in the event they receive poor grades on the previous tests or are highly anxious concerning committing similar mistake in their future tests. If specific material that a learner studies does not appear in the test, then anxiety and fear could come up, resulting in study avoidance. Students who are anxious might opt to avoid studying or even skip classes entirely with the aim of alleviating their anxiety. Onwuegbuzie, Bailey & Daley, (2000) noted that anxious second language learners tend to have challenges when it comes to distinguishing between the sound and structure of the target language. Students experiencing second language learning nervousness have been reported to comprehend less or even none of the anxiety experienced by their teachers.
The willingness of students to develop or completely shun away from social interactions is described as communication apprehension. Consequently, this is considered as the anxiety that the students go through within an oral communication. Young (1991) asserts that speaking in any second language is mostly pointed by the majority of the learners as one of their primary anxiety generating experiences. Any challenge in speaking in the classroom is also the commonly noted as a cause of anxiousness among second language students. According to Suleimenova (2013), speaking in any second language both within the academic and social context often entails taking risks and might seem to be a serious challenge where students believed not to be fluent as the native in the target languages experiences are not in a better position to openly express their personalities or intelligence. Those individuals who often are talkative and more relaxed in their first language might become highly anxious and embarrassed when communicating in the second language. However, those who ordinarily express inhibition in the first language communication, they tend to become more comfortable in using the second language.
Tanveer (2007) claims that the manifestation of communication anxiety in the second language has been reported thus giving support to the notion that student’s experiences anxiety and the greater level of reluctance when communicating with students or in expressing themselves in public in a second language where they lack full competence. The challenges in speaking in public in the second language are thus a clear manifestation of communication apprehension. When an individual is performing in a second language, the subject tends to enter into an entirely different dimension and encounters significant difficulties mainly in the target language that is not well mastered (Tanveer, 2007). Therefore, in such a circumstance, an individual is exposed to criticism and the level of humiliation compared to the natives.
Speaking in a second language thus becomes the most threatening aspect of every second language learners and that lack of critical oral skills results into a more severe problem to language learners (Zia & Sulan, 2015). Despite the fact that majority of the learners tend to show higher willingness and desire to learn how to effectively communicate orally or talk in public using a foreign language, their level of anxiety might also play the discouraging role. Speaking in front of students in class is experienced by students as low-gain and high-risk. The primary challenge of speaking anxiety among second language learners is the negative impact it has on these student’s performances and attitudes towards all the tasks within a foreign language. In such a situation, avoidance behavior might put a learner in a condition of excluding himself from interactions and conversations with individuals from diverse language and cultures since they do not share common lingua franca (Shams, 2006).
With these causal factors of anxiety among second language learners, there is the need to come up with solutions that will lower student’s anxiety. Young (1991) posits that recognition of student’s manifestation of stress associated with speaking, pessimistic assessment and language learning-produced anxiety is critical first step towards adjusting to the anxieties that emerge within second language learning. Educators also play a vital role in helping those learners experiencing anxiety to recognize some of the specific doubts and note down on a notepad (Tanveer, 2007). Further, learners might contemplate over their anxieties with other support groups or even with the second language class to be assured that they are not the only one suffering. Anxiety graph is another efficient way to lower anxiety that helps learners to narrow in on their factors that causes anxiety. Counselors or teacher will help the learners analyze the graphs and see whether the highest point is and strategy to manage the anxiety induced situation (Young, 1991).
Working with tutors can further play an essential role in strengthening specific areas that learners seem to be lacking in. Based on the ideas of Woodrow (2006), it might also be crucial to join a second language club because it will help address learning anxieties. Further, immersing entirely into the target second language in the most undisturbed and an un-graded setting can be critical to the learners to ensure that they become more motivated in the process of second language learning. Finally, instructors might be required to re-evaluate their current teaching beliefs as a way to manage anxiety among second language learners. According to Young (1991), he asserted that it might be important for the instructors to record themselves in a video to help them take what is termed as an ‘outside look’ at their styles of teaching in addition to the student’s reactions.
In conclusion, anxiety has been shown to affect second language learning. Further, from the analysis, it has been established that being a second language learner causes anxiety in communication and public speaking. Although anxiety is closely related to lower performances among second language students, there have also been studies from optimistic perspectives. Research in the field of second language learning anxiety has become accurate and spread. Second language learners’ anxiety has continued to remain one of the core barriers that instructors have had to overcome over the years. Mostly, the students have severely negative experiences when it comes to speaking activities in any second language class. It is essential for the educators to recognize that student’s anxiety might become a significant cause of the learners not being successful in speaking the second language in public. It will further help instructors to overcome potential consequences associated with anxiety. In the study, the underlying causes of anxiety among second language learner have been critically analyzed and possible solutions outlined. Anxiety, motivation and even self-confidence apparently go together, particularly among the second language learners. Each of these f components plays a vital function in the process of language acquisition and has proven to be critical in second language learning thus improving or even interfering with a learner’s capability to progress.
References
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Kitano, K. (2001). Anxiety in the college Japanese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal , 85 (4), 549-566.
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Young, D. J. (1991). Creating a Low ‐ Anxiety Classroom Environment: What Does Language Anxiety Research Suggest?. The modern language journal , 75 (4), 426-437.
Zia, Z., & Sulan, N. (2015). EFL Learners’ Levels of Classroom Performance Anxieties and Their Causes in Classroom Speaking Activities in Afganistan. International Journal of English and Education , 2 (1).
