Foreign Language Anxiety's Forgotten Study: The Case of the Anxious Preservice Teacher

Abstract

This article argues that nonnative preservice teachers are just as susceptible to foreign language anxiety as are inexperienced language learners, a claim carrying important implications for the EFL classroom. The results of the study described in this article indicate that anxious preservice teachers experience significant levels of language anxiety to a degree that may cause them to avoid using the target language and language‐intensive teaching practices in their classrooms. The article also proposes steps toward helping preservice teachers cope with and hopefully overcome their language anxiety.

Foreign language anxiety in Turkey: the role of multilingualism

“…Although Kunt (1997) found low levels of anxiety in students learning English using the FLCAS, Kunt and Tüm (2010) and Tüm (2014) found high levels of anxiety with non-native English-speaking student teachers by examining their responses to the open-ended sections of the FLCAS. In addition, using the FLCAS, Gülmez (2012) researched Turkish students learning French.…”

The Reflections of Pre-Service Efl Teachers on Overcoming Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety (Flta) During Teaching Practicum

“…However, the results also revealed that maladaptive perfectionists were found to be more anxious than adaptive and nonperfectionist. In a Turkish context study (Tum, 2015), the result indicated that anxious pre-service teachers experience significant levels of language anxiety to a degree that might cause them to avoid using the target language and language-intensive teaching practices in their classrooms.…”

Developing Classroom English Competence Learning from the Vietnam Experience

“…She argued that teachers' discomfort is likely to lead to students also believing they cannot use the language effectively. Teacher language anxiety also affects self-confidence and instructional choices, as shown in more recent research that provides support for Horwitz's contention (Machida, 2016;Tum, 2015;Yoon, 2012). Confidence, it seems, is bound up with a sense of professional self-efficacy, and increases in confidence can lead to more effective teacher agency in the classroom, a stronger sense of identity as a language teacher, and greater autonomy in making instructional decisions (Senior, 2012).…”