A Case Study of First-Year Non-English Undergraduate Students’ English Learning Anxiety in Bangladesh

Abstract

Anxiety, that is a kind of troubled state of mind, is considered as an important variable in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. It is important to address this anxiety because it represents physically and emotionally uncomfortable experience for many learners in the EFL classroom. So, it has become one of the current challenges in foreign language teaching to provide students with a low-anxiety classroom environment. This study surveyed and analyzed sixty (60) students from International Islamic University Chittagong (IIUC) in Bangladesh. From a careful examination of the EFL classroom it was found that first-year non-English undergraduate students of IIUC had a moderate level of anxiety that hinders their learning. Moreover, several sources of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) have been discerned and numerous ways for reducing it have been identified. The purpose of this study is to 1) investigate students’ anxiety level towards foreign language learning, 2) briefly review the sources of foreign language anxiety, and 3) identify ways to reduce anxiety in the EFL classroom. Different types of instruments had been used for the study among which one was developed from Horwitz (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) where there are 33 items, each one on a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solutions) version 13.0 Windows and descriptive analysis was performed to compute the means and standard deviations for each item and each kind of anxiety.

Keywords: English as a foreign language, foreign language anxiety, source, reduce, First-year Non-English undergraduate students.