The Effect of a Psycho-Education Program on EFL University Students’ Foreign Language Anxiety

One of the factors which has been shown to have a negative effect on learning English as a foreign language (EFL) is foreign language anxiety (FLA). In order to reduce FLA and hence improve foreign/second language (L۲) performance, researchers have proposed to use cognitive-behavioral approach in L۲ classrooms. Following this line of research, the main purpose of the present study is to find out whether designing a psycho-education program has positive effects on Iranian university students’ FLA level in their EFL classrooms. Participants of the present study were ۵۵ Iranian university students (۴۱ females and ۱۴ males) at B.A. level majoring in English language teaching. The participants were studying in two separate classes, one consisting of ۳۰ students and the other one consisting of ۲۵ students. The former was labeled as the experimental group and the latter was labeled as the control group. The students in the experimental group received treatments on how to reduce their anxiety. In order to measure FLA of the participants, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was used. The FLCAS was administered to the participants in both the experimental group and the control group at the beginning (i.e., pre-test) and end (i.e., post-test) of the course. The data were analyzed by using t-test to determine the difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental and control groups. According to the results, the intervention of the psycho-education program for dealing with FLA was effective in reducing the anxiety levels of the participants in the experimental group. On the other hand, the findings showed that there was no significant difference in anxiety levels of students in the control group. So, it can be concluded that psycho-education programs can help L۲ students to reduce their FLA levels.

کلیدواژه ها:

English as a foreign language ، foreign language anxiety ، cognitive-behavioral approach ، psycho-education program ، Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale