Explorando la ansiedad en el idioma extranjero a través de las percepciones de los estudiantes de inglés como lengua extranjera
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32870/vel.vi13.123Keywords:
Foreign Language Anxiety, foreign language learning, English as a foreign language, Foreign Language Learners, perceptionsAbstract
The current study is based on a phenomenon that has been labeled as Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) which is, in accordance with Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), a series of ideas about oneself and others, or specific attitudes that emerge from the process of learning a foreign language. This type of anxiety is widely recognized for hindering students’ learning achievement when studying a different language from the native one (Horwitz et al., 1986; Krashen, 1982; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989).
For this reason, this qualitative study aimed to interpret the perceptions and identify the reasons why students who are Spanish native speakers experience FLA in their English language classes, how this phenomenon affects their learning achievement, and how they deal with this problem. Through a phenomenological approach, a standardized questionnaire was applied to 17 English language learners from a Language Center in a public Mexican university. After analyzing the data, findings showed that the main cause of the development of FLA is that students did not feel satisfied with their English level; therefore, they felt that everybody else was better prepared than them and it became a source of anxiety. In the same way, students mentioned that FLA did affect their learning process and that they did not perceive an improvement of their language skills because of it. Finally, they said that what they do to deal with this problem is relaxing and practicing so as to be better in the language.
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