Anxiety as an Individual Differences

ANXIETY‘’an individual difference’’

What is anxiety ?

Scovel (1978:134)

I. stage of apprehension

II. a vague fear

III. arousal of the limbic system

Limbic system

I. Interconnected deep brain structures

II. Olfaction

III. Emotion

IV. Motivation

V. Behavior

Gliksman

Negative predicator of achievement is anxiety.

Macintyre & Gardner(1994:284)

Language anxiety is the feeling of tension and apprehension.

It’s found that a relationship where:

anxiety second

language performance.directly related to

• Many people who are good learners in othe subject areas can experience anxiety when learning a second language

Math English

Monday Tuesday

Communicative Language Teaching and Suggestopedia are explicitly directed at reducing learner anxiety.

or

Anxiety and speech communication appear to have a strong bond with each other.

I. Suitable lexis

II. Appropriate syntactic structure

III. Comprehensible accent

IV. Thinking and organizing ideas

Sypmtoms

Fear

Worry

Dread

Trouble Concentrating

Heart Palpitations

Anger

Become Forgetful Avoidance

Nervousness

Sweat

Classification

Anxiety

Facet 1 Facet 2

Facilitating Anxiety

DebilitatingAnxiety

Trait Anxiety State AnxietySituation Specified Anxiety

• 1.Trait Anxietya more permanent predisposition to be anxious. It is related to learner’s personality.

(Scovel, p.

137).

• 2.State Anxietyapprehension that is experienced at a particular moment in time as a response to a definite situation.

• (Spielberger 1983)

What if the teacher calls on me?I always get the answer wrong!

3.Situation Specific Anxietythe anxiety which is aroused by a specific type of situation or event such as public speaking,examination or class participation.

Facilitating vs debilitating anxiety

Facilitating anxiety motivates the learner to ‘fight’ the new learning task; it gears the learner emotionally for approval behavior.

Example: Student works hard and passes the exam.

Debilitatiing anxiety motivates the learner to ‘flee’ the new learning task; it stimulates the individual emotionally to adopt avoidance behavior. (Scovel, T. ,1978)

Example: run away from exams.

Sources of Anxiety

• Horwitz & Cope (1986) developed a foreign language anxiety scale based on conversation with beginner learners who identified themselves as anxious. This questionnaire consists of 33 items relating to the 3 general sources of anxiety.

Communication apprehensionTestsFear of Negative Evaluation

Teacher’s Role in Class-Room Anxiety

1. State of equilibrium in Class.2. Positive Thinking towards Students3. Encouragement4. Overlook Student’s mistakes5. Stress free environment.