A Teacher’s Action Research: Diminishing Students’ Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety

Foreign language anxiety is a general difficulty experienced by a large number of students worldwide. Taking proper measures to address this problem is of utmost significance. In this regard, this study attempted to delve into the anxiety problems of a group of Iranian students in an English language classroom. The first stage was identifying the problem through a questionnaire. Then, focused interviews were carried out with all the anxious students to find the causes of their anxiety and to recognize what the teachers can do to alleviate their problem. Multiple causes of foreign language classroom anxiety surfaced from the content analysis of the interviews, which can be categorized under three main themes; namely, tests, course materials, and stakeholders. Test anxiety of students was due to task difficulty, task format, time limit, test content validity, lack of preparation, and fear of failure. Anxiety instigated by course materials was because of uninteresting and difficult materials. Stakeholders who caused anxiety were teachers, peers, and parents. In addition, the actions that instructors can implement in an EFL classroom in order to surmount foreign language anxiety were explored. Lastly, an action plan was developed and carried out. The action plan proved to assist the anxious students in the current study to decrease their anxiety. The outcomes of this study have a number of important implications for future practice.

کلیدواژه ها:

foreign language anxiety ، teachers’ role ، action research