FRESHMAN EFL LEARNERS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING CLASSES AND COPING STRATEGIES

Авторы

  • Le Thi Thuy Duong M.A. Candidate, Can Tho University, Vietnam
  • Nguyen Huynh Trang School of Foreign Languages, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejfl.v7i3.5019

Ключевые слова:

speaking anxiety, coping strategies, EFL learners, Mekong Delta

Аннотация

This study aims to investigate what speaking anxiety freshman EFL learners encountered in their classes and what strategies they used to reduce their anxiety. A mixed methods approach was employed to collect the data, including a questionnaire following the quantitative method and individual semi-structured interviews following the qualitative method. The participants were 185 freshman EFL learners at several universities in the Mekong Delta. The combination of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale developed by Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope (1986) and the theories about three kinds of anxiety proposed by Ellis (1994) was adapted to measure freshman EFL learners’ kinds of speaking anxiety in classes. Additionally, the five categories of coping strategies in Kondo and Ling (2004) were adapted to measure the participants’ coping strategies for reducing their speaking anxiety. The results of the study showed that the participants encountered all three kinds of speaking anxiety including trait anxiety, specific-situation anxiety, and state anxiety in classes. Furthermore, the study also indicated five kinds of strategies utilized by the participants to reduce their anxiety in speaking class namely preparation strategies, relaxation strategies, positive thinking strategies, peer-seeking strategies, and resignation strategies. From the results, it was also indicated that preparation strategies were used more frequently than the other strategies by the participants in speaking classes.

 

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Биографии авторов

  • Le Thi Thuy Duong, M.A. Candidate, Can Tho University, Vietnam

    Le Thi Thuy Duong is an M.A. candidate at Can Tho University, Vietnam. She has been teaching English for several years.

  • Nguyen Huynh Trang, School of Foreign Languages, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Nguyen Huynh Trang is a lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She completed her PhD degree in Linguistics at the English and Foreign Languages Hyderabad, India. Her research is about loanwords, second language acquisition, language skills, and educational issues.

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Загрузки

Опубликован

2023-09-05

Выпуск

Том 7 № 3 (2023)

Раздел

Articles

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