Review of Related Literature

Learning foreign language such as English language considers a

complex and difficult process due to the negative impact of student’s anxiety
of learning foreign language (Anwar & Louis, 2017). Therefore, mastering the
language would not be easy as well as applying it in communication.
Learners’ anxiety is considered as one of the main significant traits in foreign
language learning (Lian & Mardziah, 2014). It is one of the common problems
that affects English language learners’ in having their academic achievement
due to the factors that manifests within the learners. According to Deyuan
(2011), anxiety is defined through individual feeling of fear, nervousness, and
tension that is associated with stimulation of an automatic nervous. Horwtiz et
al. (1986) defined anxiety in the foreign language as “an individual complex of
feelings, beliefs, behavior, and self-perceptions to language learning
classroom consequence from the different of the process of language
learning.” That is why too much anxiety may cause poor performance (Scovel,
1978). Horwitz et al., (1986) described language anxiety as a situation-
specific anxiety construct, which is an independent type of anxiety than the
other types of anxiety and characterized as “high feelings of self-
consciousness and fear of making mistakes and a desire to be perfect when
speaking.” Gardner and McIntyre (1993) described language anxiety that
when a language student learns a second language, fear and uneasiness
occurs. Language researchers and theorists generally agree that language
learning to each other, and is widely believed that anxiety inhibits successful
language learning (Quinto & Macayan, 2019). Dewaele et al., (2008)
discovered that in a large-scale study of multilingual adults around the world,
people who started learning their second or third language when they were
younger have lower levels of language anxiety. According to Filza and Tahira
(2013), language learners that are having language anxiety might transpire
potential problems, and therefore, should be eliminated among foreign
language learners that will make the learning process become more effective.
Causes of Language of Anxiety

Language anxiety is driven by the factors which is manifested naturally

to all people, especially learners, which manifest in different ways.
Pourshahian (2012) discovered that the higher the level of anxiety in English
learners would result in lower level of skill in speaking the English language.
Thus, it could also provoke anxiety in paying too much in pronunciation and
intonation. Shang (2013) generally categorize these factors into two main
categories; learners’ factors and situational factors. Learners’ factors
compromise “attitude, self-belief, age, race, personality, gender, and
motivation.” On the other hand, situational factors compromise “social
interactions, course activities, course contents, educational providers’
behavior and course level,” (Salehi & Marfet, 2014). These factors interrelate
in complex ways that cause and increase the level of anxiety of foreign
language learners, (Anwar & Louis, 2017). Learner’s individual personality
traits, such as introversion and extroversion, are associated with anxiety
arousal (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002). Boonkongsaen (2012) ascertained four
factors of anxiety in foreign language learning which are; anxieties of English
class, test anxiety, fear of negative assessment, and communication
apprehension. Students who are feeling unease in exercising their English-
speaking skills are mostly low in English language proficiency.

Some academic scholars proved that incompetence in speaking

foreign language particularly in English could increase the anxiety levels.
Shang (2013) discovered five factors that can lead to the increase of anxiety
in English classroom. These are; fear of personal failure, uncomfortable
communicating with a native English speaker, low self-esteem, speech
anxiety, and pessimistic attitude towards learning English language. In
addition, Subasi (2014) showed other factors by English learners such as;
teaching procedures, personal reasons, previous experiences, and teachers’
manners.

Effects and Symptoms of Language Anxiety

One of the concerns among researchers and educators is that anxiety

may have a negative effect on academic achievement (McIntyre, 1999).
These effects work accordingly to what type of factor. Behavioral factors refer
to patterns of behavior, such as students’ unpreparedness before going to
class, or not attending their classes (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002). Cognitive
factors which refer to language aptitude, cognitive ability, and study habits
which includes over studying. Emotional factors which emotions not only
affecting the input stage but also the processing and the output stage (Tobias,
1986; McIntyre & Garner, 1991b). Physiological Factors which refer to low
performance, forgetting words, or simply refusing to speak. Physical factors
which refer symptoms such as tapping, sweaty hands, exaggerated laughing,
or nodding (Young, 1999). Lastly, sociolinguistic factors which can affect both
the learner and the instructor in terms of classroom interaction, or cultural
issues such as speaking two L1s or sharing two cultures, which is also
connected to language anxiety (Spielman & Radnofsky, 2001).

Lian and Mardziah (2014) proved that individuals’ dry mouth, weak
knees, nausea, sweating are considered as human symptoms related to
language anxiety. It has been indicated that language learners with high level
of anxiousness are unsatisfied due to inability to communicate the language,
and that unsatisfaction causes the learners to experience language anxiety
(Anwar & Louis, 2017). Deyuan (2011) categorized learner’s reactions into
two categories and these categories are psychological and physical which
compromise the human reactions from the most common to the least common
category: stammer, trembling voice, failing to recall familiar words, pale face,
faster heart beats, feeling embarrassed, red face, unconscious behavior, and
being annoyed.

Statistics

The statistical result shown below is derived from the research article
Language Anxiety in Focus: The Case of Filipino Undergraduate Teacher
Education Learners by Jugo (2020). The researcher used two kinds of data
gathering tool, an English proficiency exam (EPE), which is a test that intends
to measure the English proficiency level of Filipino students enrolled in
teacher education courses, and a questionnaire comprising two parts: a 30-
item English Language Anxiety Scale (ELAS) and a set of questions on
causes of anxiety and effects on language learning. A series of interviews
were also done to validate and clarify the responses of the learners for the
ELAS. The ELAS is a 30-item Likert-type questionnaire, which uncovers the
anxiety level of the examinee. The respondents came from various teacher
education courses including Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSE),
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Education (BSIE), and Bachelor of
Elementary Education (BEED)

As can be seen, speaking activity was identified as the primary source

of language anxiety (M = 3.64, SD = 0.60), followed by error correction (M =
3.50, SD = 0.49) and communicating with English speakers (M = 3.49, SD =
0.42). These three were all rated by Filipino learners as sources of high levels
of anxiety. On the other hand, writing activity (M = 3.23, SD = 0.32), negative
self-perception (M = 3.28, SD = 0.36), and non-comprehension (M = 3.26, SD
=0.46) were all identified as sources of moderate levels of anxiety.

The respondents worried much about the errors they might be

committing, and they did not like being laughed at or making a fool of
themselves in public. The result was evident in English classes where the
students tried to avoid activities like recitation, speech delivery, and the like
since speaking needed to be spontaneous, and learners find it embarrassing
on their part when the entire class hears every single mistake they committed.
Of the sources of anxiety, error correction ranked second, which is attributed
to the fact that students do not want to be criticized and corrected in front of
the whole class. Even in writing activities, students were embarrassed and
even afraid to see their outputs evaluated as having many errors and
appearing with too many red marks.