An Investigative Study on the Types and Causes of Esl Writing Anxiety: A Case Study of Learners From a Chinese Independent Middle School

Abstract

Feelings of fear, anxiety, and worry make the learning of ESL / EFL difficult as learners’ focus is being interrupted. Writing; whether in first or second language, is considered a difficult process. The arousal of negative psychological experience in a second/foreign language writing is known as foreign language writing anxiety. As such, the underlying causes of ESL / EFL anxiety need to be understood to ensure a smooth language writing process for ESL / EFL learners. This study aims to investigate the level, types, and causes of writing anxiety among the students in a Chinese Independent Middle School. A convenience sample total of 30 Chinese Independent Middle School students were purposely chosen to participate in this study. This research adopted two survey questionnaires; Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) by Cheng (2004) and Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI) by Rezaeia & Jafari (2014). The findings revealed that these students experience a high level of cognitive anxiety, moderate level of somatic anxiety, and low level of avoidance behaviour. It is discovered that the level of writing anxiety being experienced by the students is at the level of moderate to high anxiety. Meanwhile, in terms of the causal factor for writing anxiety, the results reported high means scores for each causal of writing anxiety theme are 'afraid of writing tests' for negative writing experience theme, 'feel worried to write under time constraints' for negative writing attitude theme and 'often encounter some linguistic problems' for limit writing knowledge and skill theme. The researcher proposed some strategies that could be used in reducing ESL writing anxiety which are: process writing approach, affective strategies, positive error correction, and vocabulary knowledge enhancement.
 
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ESL Writing Anxiety in the CEFR Setting: Does it Affect the Students?

“…In line with the review of the related studies, much research has been carried out to determine the types, levels, and causes of ESL writing anxiety. The findings differ from one another, such as in some studies, the most dominant type of writing anxiety is cognitive anxiety (David et al, 2018;Iksan & Halim, 2018;Jafari, 2019;Kusumaningputri et al, 2018;Okubay, 2020;Rabadi & Rabadi, 2020;Tsiriotakis et al, 2017;Wern & Rahmat, 2021). As for somatic anxiety, it is found to be the most dominant in some research, such as in (Alfiansyah et al, 2017;Arindra and Ardi, 2020;Ekmekci, 2018;Rudiyanto, 2017).…”

“…Selected students were then interviewed to explain their views on the causes of their writing anxiety through a semi-structured interview adapted from CWAI. The responses given by the interviewees were then analysed using thematic analysis as shown below, which corresponds to (Wern and Rahmat, 2021). Each interview session lasted about 15 minutes.…”

“…Abdullah et al (2018) also asserted the same observation where individuals experiencing writing anxiety display a form of fear towards the process of writing and their feelings of inclination where they may prohibit themselves from any kind of motivation, help, or support while writing while facing the struggles with the writing task itself. Several effects of anxiety include uneasiness, frustration, self-doubts, and tension (Wern & Rahmat, 2021).…”

“…Other studies, such as those conducted by Elif and Yayli (2019); Mulyono et al (2020); Surur and Dengela (2019), show a higher prevalence in its avoidance behavior. When it comes to causes of writing anxiety, some researchers have also anticipated the recurring causes such as fear of writing tests and anxiousness when writing under time constraints (Wern & Rahmat, 2021). Learners are also found to be feeling rather fearful of their teacher's negative evaluations while facing linguistic difficulties and having low self-confidence in writing (Rezaei & Jafari, 2014).…”

“…Writing, in mother tongue or a second language poses its own challenges to ESL learners. Apparently, there are cognitive activities involved in writing process (Wern & Rahmat, 2021) which may or may not jeopardize students' abilities. Students are also concerned with their own psychological responses on the task at hand (Thevasigamoney, 2015) that could bring down their level of writing performance.…”