Şengül BALKAYA, Behiye ARABACIOĞLU, Mustafa ÇAKIR

Students’ Foreign-Language Classroom Anxiety at the Department of German Language Teaching Program(a Sample from Anadolu University)

This study aimed to assess students’ anxiety levels at the Department of German Language Teaching Program at Anadolu University and examine foreign-language teaching conditions based on various variables. It adopted a survey model and recruited a sample of 70 students from the said department. Quantitative data were obtained using the Questionnaire of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) and adapted to Turkish by Aydın and Zengin (2008). Qualitative data, on the other hand, were collected from semistructured interviews. For data analysis, this study applied descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and content analysis. The results showed that students have a medium level of anxiety in foreign languages, and while they receive foreign language lessons, they do not consider themselves competent enough. In addition, students’ gender, type of high school attended, and language level did not influence their anxiety whereas their stay and study abroad and their preparatory year at a university significantly affected it. External factors, such as peer pressure, and internal factors, such as fear of wrongdoing, lack of self-confidence, and embarrassment regarding grammar, word choice, and pronunciation, were also found to contribute to student anxiety.

Keywords:

Anxiety, foreign language classroom anxiety foreign language, German as a foreign language, foreign language teaching program,

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