Indonesian Students’ Strategies to Cope With Foreign Language Anxiety

Abstract

Previous research reports that foreign language anxiety (FLA) is one of the affective factors exerting influence on foreign language learning. Myriad studies have examined how foreign language learners cope with foreign language anxiety. However, few studies have addressed the particular moments when students feel the most anxious and how they cope with this anxiety. The present study aims to (1) identify specific moments when students feel the most anxious; (2) investigate their coping strategies, and (3) recognize the changes in the strategies used by the students during specific moments in their language learning. In so doing, a stimulated recall was carried out among five university students from non-English departments who had to conduct presentations in English. The findings show that they displayed different levels of anxiety, which resulted in several accidents during the presentation. The participants with a high anxiety level tended to utilize monotonous coping strategies. This study implies that teachers need to take into account their students’ anxiety levels before they commence a new term or semester. When encountering highly anxious students, they can introduce the learners to alternative strategies to cope with anxiety.

Foreign language anxiety and dependency distance in English–Chinese interpretation classrooms

“…Foreign language anxiety (FLA) has been identified as a crucial affective factor in students’ language learning ( Fallah, 2017 ; Abdurahman and Rizqi, 2020 ). College students’ foreign/second language skills are still developing.…”

“…Additionally, more and more studies have focused on the relationship between language anxiety and other learning variables ( Oteir and Al-Otaibi, 2019 ). For example, studies on the relationship of FLA with the following variables: Willingness to communicate ( Liu and Jackson, 2008 ; Rastegar and Karami, 2015 ; Yan et al, 2018 ; Kalsoom et al, 2020 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ), learning style ( Bailey et al, 1999 ), self-efficacy ( Mills et al, 2006 ; Eginli and Solhi, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2022 ), self-confidence ( Bensalem and Thompson, 2022 ), self-esteem ( Rubio-Alcalá, 2017 ), learning autonomy ( Ahmadi and Izadpanah, 2019 ), learning strategies ( Abdurahman and Rizqi, 2020 ; Demir and Zaimoğlu, 2021 ), motivation ( Duvernay, 2009 ; Saito et al, 2018 ; Alamer and Almulhim, 2021 ; Ismail and Hastings, 2021 ), learner beliefs ( Aslan and Thompson, 2021 ), and personality ( Dewaele, 2017 ; Šafranj, 2018 ; Šafranj and Zivlak, 2019 ).…”

“…When students cannot concentrate on the language learning task, the input information cannot reach their brains. Following the input stage, students’ speed and accuracy in storing information in the processing stage and the quality of their products in the output stage can also be affected by FLA ( Abdurahman and Rizqi, 2020 ). MacIntyre and Gardner (1994) examined the effect of induced anxiety in the three stages of vocabulary learning.…”