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"4.1:?II III. /%IV;I.‘fiI ””Ill‘lllIllflnl .IM . 3"" . {1.3: filing .fl. k 53b. . 5|. I‘: .' II. :1 | .' . ' . 4' ‘ J ‘ I l '1' .IIII.II:IIII‘ II «£93 ”3‘3 714+:th “WWWW Rwy This is to certify that the thesis entitled ANXIETY IN THE ESL CLASSROOM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY presented by MARY HUI -TZE WONG has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph. D. degree in _Englisb_ Major professor Datew 0-7639 OVFRDUE FINES ARE 25C PER DAY PER ITEM Return to book drop to remove this checkout from your record. ‘ ANXIETY IN THE ESL CLASSROOM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY By Mary H. Wong A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English 1979 ABSTRACT ANXIETY IN THE ESL CLASSROOM: AN EXPLO RATORY STUDY By Mary H. Wong Recent research on second language learning has shown that, in order for us to make more accurate statements about how a second lan— guage is learned, and why some learners are better able to acquire a second language than others, we need to know more about the learner himself and to examine the more intrinsic and less obvious variables of affect. Of the more important affective variables, anxiety has been shown to exert either a positive or negative influence on learning. Although many studies have been done to investigate the effects of anxiety in the ordinary learning situation, few have investigated the role and influence of anxiety in the English as a second language sit- uatiou . The present research has been designed for the purpose of dis— covering the most effective method for studying anxiety in the ESL classroom and at the same time seek to provide answers for the follow- ing questions: (1) What is the relationship between state anxiety and the successful acquisition of English as a second language? (2) What is the relationship between state anxiety and the more permanent trait anxiety? (3) Is there a relationship between state anxiety and writing apprehension? (4) Is there a correlation between students' report of their own anxiety states and the teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states? (5) What are some of the more important factors contributing Mary H. Wong to the anxiety of the ESL learners? (6) Where in a list of anxiety- inducing factors does the actual task of learning the English language stand? (7) What are the effects of anxiety on their performance as perceived by the learners themselves? (8) What strategies are commonly employed by the ESL learners to control their anxiety? and (8) What are the anxiety factors that are common to subjects? Three methods were used to collect the data on anxiety from 43 D- and E-level students at the English Language Center of Michigan State University in the winter quarter of 1979: (1) students' assessment of their own anxiety states, employing Spielberger et al.'s State-Trait Anixety Inventory and Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension; (2) teachers' evaluation of students' anxiety states, using a teachers' evaluation scale developed from Spielberger's State Anxiety Scale; and (3) a series of in-depth interviews of six case study subjects selected from the larger group. An analysis of the data collected by the students' anxiety mea- sures as well as the teachers' evaluation scale indicated (1) no corre— lation between anxiety and success in the acquisition of English as a second language; (2) a significant positive relationship between trait anxiety and state anxiety; (3) no relationship between state anxiety and writing apprehension; and (A) no correlation between students' report of their own anxiety states and their teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states. Results of the case studies suggested that the three problems that contributed most to subjects' anxiety were financial problems,concern over their future career, and success in acquiring the English Mary H. Wong language. Other problems mentioned by subjects, and listed in an order. of descending importance, were: food, relationship with friends, frus- tration with methods of instruction, relationship with teachers, time limit, adjustment to the new culture, health of family members, per- sonal health, political conditions in their native country, schoolwork, classwork at the ELC, fear of losing old friends, relationship with roommates and losing identity with their native culture. In this list of anxiety factors, the successful acquisition of English was a primary source of anxiety only if subjects were working under a time constraint to learn and master the language. Results also suggested that the younger subjects were more affected by problems related to social/cul- tural adjustments than the older subjects who were more concerned with the well-being of their families and the political conditions in their native country. Subjects indicated that anxiety could have a facili- tating or debilitating effect on their learning, depending on the time and the situation. Three kinds of strategies were observed in the strategies subjects said they used to control their anxiety: (1) pre- ventive strategies; (2) strategies used to solve anxiety-causing prob- lems; and (3) strategies employed to mask their anxiety. An evaluation of the three methods employed in this study showed that the case study method was most useful in soliciting the informa- tion needed. However, data collected from the use of students' anxiety measures were useful in providing the background information for pur- poses of comparison and interpretation of the case study data, while the teachers' evaluation was valuable in providing a different per— spective from which the phenomenon of anxiety could be observed. - A— an...‘ Dedicated to My parents and husband ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For the successful completion of this research I wish to give honor and praise to God and to express my gratitude to the following individuals and institutions: Dr. Paul Munsell for initiating the research and making avail- able to me the facilities of the English Language Center at Michigan State University Drs. Stephen Judy and Candida Gillis for their expertise and invaluable suggestions in the designing and reporting of the research Dr. John Yunck for his constant encouragement and help in my years at MSU The D- and E-level teachers and students for their cooperation and participation in the study Mrs. Boonreang Kajoinsin for her assistance in the computation of the data Mrs. Carmen Holland for her help in the preparation and typing of the manuscript My parents and husband for being constant sources of inspira- tion and encouragement, and The Far Eastern Division of Seventh-day Adventists and South- east Asia Union College for the financial support of my graduate program. iii LIST OF TABLES 0 LIST OF FIGURES . CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. APPENDIX A. APPENDIX B. APPENDIX C. BIBLIOGRAPHY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY METHODOLOGY TABLE OF CONTENTS ANALYSIS OF GROUP DATA RESULTS OF CASE STUDIES . . . SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND EXTENSIONS INSTRUMENTS USED IN STUDY FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO ANXIETY PILOT STUDY iv vi 44 64 75 128 159 167 168 170 10. ll. 12. 13. 14. LIST OF TABLES Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Test Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Achievement Scores . . . . . . . . . Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Trait Anxiety . . . . . . . . Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Teachers' Evaluation Scores . . . . . Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Writing Apprehension . . . . . . . . Match—Pair T-Test of Differences in Anxiety Scores Achieved by Males and Females Anxiety Scores of Ahmed . . . Anxiety Scores of Juan Anxiety Scores of Farida Anxiety Scores of Ikusan Anxiety Scores of Hassan . . . Anxiety Scores of Santo Mean and Standard Deviation of State Anxiety Scores 0 O O O O O O O O O I O O D I C Subjects' Ranking of Anxiety Factors . . 65 66 68 68 71 72 82 92 99 104 112 121 136 141 1. 2. 3. LIST OF FIGURES Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Achievement Pearson Correlation of State Anxiety with Teachers' Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . Frequency Distribution of State Anxiety and Teachers' Evaluation Scores vi 67 69 7O CHAPTER I REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Introduction In a survey of the theses and dissertations written by graduate students in the area of second language learning, Stephen Cooper notes that, up to 1978, research on teaching methods, techniques and mate- rials accounts for close to half of the research reported. Studies classified under psycholinguistics account for only fifteen percent, and those dealing with culture and sociolinguistics for only ten per- cent.1 Nida and Rubin have also pointed out that teachers and researchers, in their concern with external and more observable vari- ables suchensteaching strategies and learning materials, have in gen- eral neglected the more subtle and less obvious variables like motiva- tion which may show us what is actually going on in the learner himself in the process of second language learning. New findings suggest that the general process of second language acquisition is a creative construction process very much the same as that of first language acquisition and that the learner is "an active and creative participant in the acquisition process."3 These findings have led to a clear shift from interest in research on strategies in second language teaching and linguistic product of the learners to an interest in research on the learner or on the learning process. Socio- linguists like John Schumann think that in order to make more accurate statements about how a second language is learned, we must take a more global look at the second language learner.4 Not only should we look into the ”what" in second language learning, as has been done in research studies on morpheme acquisition by Dulay and Burt, Madden, Bailey and Krashen, Hakuta, and Larsen-Freeman and auxiliary studies by Evelyn Hatch, Cancino, Rosansky and Schumann, but we should also look into the "why" and "how” in second language acquisition. The "why" includes initiating factors such as affective and cultural variables, which, to a large degree, regulate the extent of learning, and the ”how" includes cognitive operations that the learner performs on the second language data. Of the "why" and "how," Hilgard, Brown, and Schumann feel that the first has not received the attention it deserves. As early as 1963, Ernest Hilgard warned that a purely cognitive theory of learning will be rejected if a more important role is not accorded to affectivity. In forecasting the new revolution that will take place in second lan- guage research in the next twenty-five years, Brown predicts that the late 1970s will usher in a new paradigm in language teaching, with "psychology occupying a key role."6 He believes that the affective domain is "one of the most promising and urgent areas of research. . This area, maybe, more than the linguistic, might be the key to unlock the mystery of L2 A [second language acquisition]."7 The affective domain includes "those feelings and attitudes indi- viduals hold toward themselves and their environment." It refers to 3 "the individual emotional characteristics as opposed to their intel- . . "8 lectual and soc1al traits. Schumann feels that the complexity of the second language learning process requires the exploration of new and varied research paradigms. He thinks that the affective domain will "provide a particularly fruit- ful area in which differential success in second language acquisition . "9 can be studied. A concern with affective variables in second language learning is important for the following reasons: 1. Psychologists and educators now believe that attitudes and feelings play a very important role in providing the proper motivation for achievement and success in a learning situation. They feel that affective variables are crucial to second language learning because of the tremendous influence they can exert over the cognition of the learners. As Chastain has pointed out, "positive feelings and atti- tudes can compensate to a certain extent lack of cognitive capabilities, just as negative attitudes and feelings can diminish the most gifted . . nlO . academic potential. In the second language class, the student is treading on new and unfamiliar linguistic grounds. The resultant feeling of insecurity renders him most vulnerable to a negative cogni- tive set; hence, attitudes which can build up his confidence, coopera- tion, and perserverence are especially crucial to his success in acquiring and mastering the new language. Chastain also notes that a positive attitude on the part of the student is especially important for developing productive skills . . . . ll . . (speaking and writing) in the second language. Productive skills, according to Vigotsky, have their origins in a person's feelings, 4 needs, and emotions.12 Any attempts to develop a proficiency in pro- ductive skills in the second language, therefore, would be quite mean- ingless if divorced from the students' feelings and attitudes. 2. The current trend in education is to provide for the develop- ment of the "total" student. Educators recognize that it is important to involve the student intellectually, physically, as well as emotion- ally in the learning experience, especially in the venture of learning a new language. While teachers and researchers once believed that emotional and social development would take care of themselves when an individual developed intellectually, today there is a growing recogni- tion that the learner needs assistance in intellectual growth as well as in emotional and social growth. 3. Research has shown that there are great variations among learners in the acquisition of a second language. To explain why some learners acquire a language quickly and thoroughly while others fail to do so even though they are provided with the same teaching materials and the same learning environment, researchers feel that they should look into the affective component of learning.13 Affective variables, according to Schumann, are initiators of second language learning and can provide insights as to why a language is learned or not learned. 4. Psychologists have shown that each learner comes to the learn- ing situation with a set of basic needs such as the need for security, the need for affiliation, the need for self-esteem, and the need for self-actualization. Maslow sees these needs as hierarchical in nature and has classified them into (1) the basic or deficiency needs and (2) the meta or growth needs. The basic needs for security, affilia- tion, and self-esteem must be met before consideration can be given to 5 meta or growth needs such as the need for self-actualization and other . 15 . . aesthetic needs. In the second language learning Situation, the basic security of the learner is threatened by the new and unfamiliar learning environment and the need to speak a new language. The primary needs of the second language learner for safety, affiliation and self- esteem must, therefore, be satisfied before he can commit himself fully to the satisfaction of the self-actualization need of learning a new language. A consideration of affective variables will help us to assess how much of the learner's basic needs should be taken care of before we can motivate him to satisfy the higher needs of language learning, and in doing so, help teachers to plan more effectively. Scovel has categorized affective variables into perseverance . . . . l6 . factors, personality characteristics and learner variables. Chastain has further subdivided learner variables into intrinsic and extrinsic variables on the assumption that students can be motivated intrinsi- . . l7 . . . . cally as well as extrinSically. Of the intrinSic learner variables, anxiety has been defined by Schwatz as one of the more important vari- ables influencing second language acquisition. Anxiety: Definition and Theory In general, anxiety is conceived of by most psychologists as a state of apprehension or a fear and foreboding brought about by a per- ception of threat and created by the arousal of the limbic system--the primitive subcortical region of the cerebrum responsible for affective response. While contemporary interest in anxiety and its effects was 6 generated by the philosophical and theological views of Pascal and Kierkegaard, it was Freud who first attempted to describe anxiety within the context of psychological theory.19 He defined anxiety as an unpleasant affective state distinct from other emotional states such as anger, grief or sorrow by its "unique combination of phenomenological and physiological qualities." It has a special "character of unplea- IIZO He sure" which appears "to possess a particular note of its own. made a significant contribution to the theory of anxiety by his descrip— tion of it as a signal warning of danger or threat whether objective or subjective, physical, or mental, and conscious or subconscious. Basowitz et a1. sees anxiety as a conscious and reportable experi- ence of intense dread and foreboding caused by conditions which threaten the integrity of an organism.22 To Rubinstein, anxiety is ”a state of apprehension or uneasiness concerning some uncertain event. As a sub- jective sensation anxiety is similar to fear, but it tends to be less 23 May observes that anxiety is characterized by sharply focused." feelings of uncertainty and helplessness brought about by the percep- tion of a threat to "some value which the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality" or the threat to "any pattern which the individual has developed upon which he feels his safety to depend."24 He distinguishes normal anxiety from neurotic anxiety. Unlike neurotic anxiety, normal anxiety evokes a reaction that is "not disproportionate to the objective threat . . . and does not require neurotic defense mechanisms for its management, but can be confronted constructively on the level of conscious awareness or can be relieved if the objective situation is altered."25 Psychologists think that anxiety is an affective response to 7 external and/or internal stimuli and anxiety level varies according to time and situation. Mechanic notes that whether anxiety is felt or not is influenced by such factors as a person's perception of his ability to cope with the situation, the skills and limitations imposed by group practices and tradition, as well as the means provided by the social . 26 . . . . . enVironment. Spielberger thinks that a person s vulnerability to anxiety is determined by the extent that social and cultural factors present a threat to the personal security of an individual and his . . . . . 27 . attempts to establish his psychological identity. He also pOints out that the anxiety level of individuals fluctuates over time, depend- . . . . 28 . ing on the internal or external stimulation. This has led to the distinction between state anxiety described by Gaudry and Spielberger as a ”transitory emotional state" of apprehension that differs in intensity at various times and trait anxiety which describes the more permanent and stable "differences in anxiety proneness" found among individuals. In the words of Spielberger, State anxiety, like kinetic energy, refers to an empirical process or reaction taking place at a particular moment in time and at a given level of intensity. Trait anxiety, like potential energy, indicates differences in the strength ofzg latent disposition to manifest a certain type of reaction. Of the two, state anxiety would be more descriptive of the kind of anxiety one is likely to find in a second language learning situation. In an educational setting, Sullivan's definition of anxiety is most appropriate. According to him, it is the tension generated by the fear of disapproval in interpersonal relations. It is "an experi- ence which signalizes threat to the success one is having with signifi- cant adults, or to one's self-respect which is actually an elaborate 8 "30 structure of reflected respect from others. Perhaps the best description of anxiety in a second language learning situation is that given by Adler. He views anxiety as basi- cally a person's fear of exposure of his worthlessness or inferiority. It can also be seen as the evidence of an inner conflict between a per- son's desire for self-assertion and the fear of defeat, the exposure of his weakness as well as his inadequacy.31 Anxiety-Inducing Factors in the ESL Classroom In a second language learning situation, many factors are respon- sible for increasing the anxiety level of the learner. In addition to the common problems that contribute to the anxiety of an ordinary individual, the ESL (English as a second language) learner has to cope with the traumas of culture and language shock as well as the stress of having to master a new language. Often times anxiety is generated in the learner by the "culture shock" he experiences in trying to adjust to a new culture. Culture shock has been defined by Schumann as "anxiety resulting from dis— orientation encountered upon entering a new culture."32 As Larsen and Smalley have pointed out, often the essential characteristics of good mental health are lost when an individual moves into a new culture."33 A mentally healthy person, as defined by Howard and Scott, is one who is in control of his environment, who can handle routine matters with a minimum of energy, and who can marshall the maximum amount of energy to handle problems and upredictable events.34 An ordinarily healthy person is equipped with a repertoire of 9 problem-solving and coping mechanisms which enable him to control his environment in a familiar setting, as Stengal and Schumann note. On entry into a new culture, however, he is bound to experience disorien- tation when he discovers that all the familiar psychological cues that had helped him function in his own country cannot work in the new country. This means that tasks which required only minimum energy in . . 35 his native culture now demands a great deal of energy. "New problems mean new demands on one's supply of energy," according to Larson and Smalley. "New climate, the new foods, the new people all mean that the alien must muster up every bit of available . . "36 . . . energy and put it to use in new ways. More Significantly, the resultant feelings of stress and anxiety "can induce a whole syndrome of rejection which diverts attention and energy from the learning of "37 the second language. Such factors as personality adjustment and personal value commit- ment to the legal and moral codes and religious values of the new tar- get language community, often against one's personal preferences, will lead to a great deal of pain and anxiety for the individual trying to . . . . 38 fit himself to the boundaries and rights of others. As Smalley has shown, in the new environment, even the small and inconsequential difference in the act of handshaking can cause an uneasiness which, combined with other uncertainties, that is, not knowing when to speak 39 to strangers, can create a great deal of stress. "Culture shock" is often evidenced in feelings of hostility and alienation when the learner's attempts to familiarize himself with the new environment and to acquaint himself with the people of the new lan- guage community are frustrated. In her own experience with "culture lO shock" in Iran and Tunisia, Francine Schumann reported that in each place, her "obsession with nesting" claimed a great deal of her time, energy, and emotional involvement, leaving very little time and energy for the acquisition of the new language. In situations where her desire to make her surroundings comfortable was frustrated, her resultant feelings of alienation and anxiety had a negative effect on . 40 n u her language learning endeavor. The culture shock that Jones experienced in Indonesia led to her rejection of the speakers of the target language. She felt that her inability to identify with the people and her negative reaction to their social behavior and lifestyle led to a noticeable deterioration in whatever Indonesian language she . 4 had already acquired. A major symptom of "culture shock" is homesickness. For the newly arrived ESL learner, symbols of home assume great importance. For example, he may attach so much importance to the food, attire, music and entertainment he has been accustomed to in his own native country, he spends a great deal of time looking for the same things in the new environment or entertaining nostalgic thoughts of the past. This inevitably takes up time and energy needed for the learning of the new 4 language. With the older ESL learners, aside from the stress of personal adjustments, is the additional concern over the adjustments that their families will have to make in the new environment. Schumann notes that "culture shock" and stress can also manifest themselves in concern . . . . 43 for the education and well-being of one 5 children. Guiora, Brannon, and Dull point out that in a second language learning context, the learner must undergo the unpleasant and even ll painful process of adopting a new culture. To many this poses a chal- lenge to the integrity of basic identifications. As the learner finds himself stepping into a new world, he must extend his real self to take on a new identity. This entails adapting to the demands of the new culture. The task of fitting himself to the boundaries and social role of the new target language community can bring a great deal of pain and anxiety. Related to the conflict of having to accept a new identity is the anxiety of deciding whether one wants to give up his old identity. Schumann describes three different modes with which a second language learner adapts to the culture of the second language community, each demonstrating a different degree of integration. They are preserva- tion, acculturation, and assimilation. In preservation, the second language learner completely rejects the cultural patterns and values of the target language group and seeks to preserve those of his own native country; in acculturation, the second language learner main- tains the lifestyle and values of his native country; and in assimila— tion, the learner more readily gives up his own native culture and adopts that of the target language group.45 In general it can be anticipated that the more serious student will consider assimilation and that the degree of assimilation will be influenced by the length of time the learner has already spent in the country as wellanahis intended length of stay in the country. It has been recognized that the more proficient one becomes in a second lan- guage, the more he will find his place in his native community modi- fied, and the new language community will become for him more than a reference group. In this process of assimilation it is most likely 12 that he will "experienced feelings of chagrin or regret as he loses ties in one group, mixed with the fearful anticipation of entering a new and somewhat strange group."46 Progress in learning a new language is often arrested at a certain stage. This can often be traced to a partly conscious self- imposed feeling of the need to maintain one's native language, thus resulting in an emotional resistance to the new language.47 This has been demonstrated in a study done by Lambert on students under- going an intensive course in French at the French Summer School of McGill University. These students were mainly American university students or secondary-school language teachers. A noted phenomenon was that as the students increased in their proficiency "to the point that they thought and even dreamed" in the French language, they showed signs of reverting to the use of English even though they had pledged to use only French during the six-week period. This is explained by the theory of "anomie" advanced by Durkheim. "Anomie" refers to the feelings of social uncertainty or dissatisfaction with or alienation from one's own cultural group. This often leads to a rejection of one's own culture and a positive identification with the culture of the other linguistic group, a condition which can be very conducive to second language learning. The American students studying at McGill University experienced "anomie" when they mastered the tar- get language and reacted to their anxiety about the way they felt by developing strategems to control or resist such feelings; hence they reverted to the use of their own native language. If this condition continues without a concommitant acceptance of the foreign culture, 13 the learner may find himself resisting the learning of the new lan- guage altogether.48 A greater anxiety is faced by the language learner who has a con- flict of cultural allegiances and is ambivalent about his identity. In their study of an ethnic minority group, the French Americans in New England, Gardner and Lambert observed that those who identified with the American culture and rejected the French culture were more proficient in English than French, and those who identified with the French culture attained greater proficiency in French, but those who experienced a conflict in cultural allegiances were retarded in their command of both languages.49 Nida cites the example of Mr. D., a missionary to the Middle East, to demonstrate that anxiety over the question of basic identification can work even on a subconscious level. Although Mr. D's talents and personality gave every promise of his becoming a good language learner, he failed to acquire the new language. Nida traced the source of his problem to an anxiety developed in childhood. Mr. D's parents who were immigrants to the U.S. had never mastered the English lan- guage. In his desire to identify with the more prestigious-English- speaking community and in his attempt to dissociate himself from his own cultural background, Mr. D. denied that he knew his native lan- guage. Nida thinks that his inability to learn a foreign language was only an overt demonstration of his inner psychological apprehension over losing his new identity.50 In the ESL classroom a great deal of anxiety can be generated from misunderstandings arising from cross-cultural contacts because of variations in verbal as well as non-verbal language. Stengal notes 14 that in general our thought processes are accompanied by visual . 51 . . . images. The concept of an object in one language may conjure up a different visual image for speakers of a different language. A non- native speaker, for example, may experience a great deal of stress when invited by an American to eat a hot dog because it is against his . . . 52 religious beliefs to eat dog meat. Different cultures are governed by different social and linguistic rules and applied differently under different circumstances. In the English language, for example, there are shared conventions regarding the devices used to convey the intentions, feelings, and attitudes of the speakers. The use of interjections such as "yes," "well," "oh"; hedges like 'sorta, you might say"; and correction markers are governed by specific rules, and their use, with the correct stress and intonation patterns, are understood by native speakers in predictable ways. Non-native speakers who are unacquainted with such social rules and are unaware of the significance of pitch and stress often break such rules without knowing it. When this happens, native speakers who are frequently ready to make allowance for the grammatical errors made by non-native students are less ready to excuse them for breaking social rules if the cultural differences are not understood.53 The resultant negative reaction of the native Speakers is bound to create anxiety in the foreign offender who is even more apprehensive because he does not understand what he has done to give offense. An even more subtle component of communication is non—verbal behavior. It is often forgotten that "just as every spoken language is a part of its parent culture, so also is every body language uniquely a product of its culture."54 Non—verbal behavior being 15 culture specific, can cause great confusion and a sense of disorienta- tion when it occurs in a different cultural context or setting, for people from a similar cultural background are able to interpret cor- rectly signals conveyed by the posture and facial expressions and adjust accordingly, but people from a different culture unconsciously interpret such Signals in terms of their own cultural conventions or miss them altogether. Variations in haptics (science of touching), proxemics (personal distance at which speakers stand away from each other), and kinesics (science of body motions and gestures) among different cultures, as Nine—Curt has shown, can lead to a great deal of tension between na- tive and non-native speakers. In proxemics, for example, the personal distance in the U.S. and many European countries is from eighteen to thirty inches, and the intimate distance is from Skin contact or six to eighteen inches. In some countries such as Latin America, however, what is intimate distance in the U.S. is personal distance for the Latin Americans. It is not unusual, therefore, for Americans to con- sider Latin Americans as "too pushy," and "too sexy," and the Latin Americans to feel uneasy and anxious over what they perceive to be the ”aloof, cold, uninterested, and perhaps even socially or politi- cally prejudiced" attitude of the Americans.55 In many foreign cultures teachers are accorded the greatest respect, and students Show their deference by bowed heads or a lower- ing of the eyes. An American teacher's attempt to hold eye contact, for example, can prove a source of anxiety for students who interpret it as an accusation of wrongdoing or an attempt at flirting. Others may be anxious over what they perceive to be non-professional breaking 16 down of proper teacher-student decorum. Smalley thinks that language study itself can send some people into "culture Shock" because they have a mental block against prac- ticing something they do not understand. Anxiety increases with the realization that they are caught in a vicious circle-~they resist learning the new language, but they are unable to function in the new country without learning the new language. They resort to relying on translating conversations into their own native languages and in the process of doing so, miss whole portions of meaning. These portions they have missed are ever-present sources of anxiety as they miss much of what is going on around them. Closely related to "culture shock" is language shock which is a common source of anxiety for the ESL learner. Curran holds that one who is learning to speak a second language, especially if he is an adult accustomed to the basic security of the sounds and expressions in his own native language, is bound to experience a high degree of personal threat and anxiety in his attempts to speak the new language. His anxiety mounts with the inability to deal with the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, for not only does the learner have to give up his security and comfort in the sounds of his own native language but he must adapt to the demands of the whole grammar—pronunciation structure of the new language. Just as "culture Shock" is caused by a mismatch between psycho— logical cues and desired results, language shock is caused by a mis- match between words used and meaning intended. In using the new lan- guage, a learner may be unable to find the correct words to express his ideas. The ordinary person understands the frustrations of l7 searching for the correct words to express his real feelings in his native language. With the ESL learner such feelings of frustrations are compounded by apprehensions of how accurately the words he is using reflect his ideas and feelings. According to Jones, the frustrations and dissatisfaction in being unable to express an idea in one's native language is amplified in the second language learning situation.59 Stengel maintains that in general there is an initial resistance on the part of the second language learners against objects they are compelled to denote by new names. This reaction is found to be strongest when objects nearest to their feelings are involved. Of even more interest is the observed resistance against the use of foreign idioms in that it represents a regression in the direction of the primary process which created the idioms in the first place. In a different sense, there is the phenomenon of a sense of shame, tinged by a feeling of guilt, experienced by some learners when they are finally able to express themselves correctly in the new language. Stengal attributes this to their anxious expectation of the effect and impression this new achievement would create.60 A learner's general reluctance to use the new language, Smalley explains, is due to the fact that language is the most "important com— munication medium in any human society" and an "area where the largest "61 In trying number of the cues to interpersonal relationships lie. to use the new language, the learner finds himself stripped of his primary means of interacting with other people. His apprehension increases as he is subjected to constant mistakes and feels himself forced onto the level of a child again. The use of the new language, according to Curran, "involves the learner in a temporary psychological 18 return to the state of a small child with its concommitant sense of weakness, anxiety, inadequacy and dependency."62 This is especially disturbing for individuals who have already achieved a high level of education in their own native language. They experience the deep frustrations of being unable to display their education and intelli- gence--the symbols of their status and security in their own country. In their contacts with intelligent people, especially in an educa- tional setting, they are frustrated by their inability to respond intelligently because their limited vocabulary in the new language does not permit them to do so. As Stengel has asserted, Hardly anyone is free from a sense of shame when he Starts using a new language. This can be explained by the feeling of insufficiency. Acquiring a new language in adult life is an anachronism and many people cannot easily tolerate the infantile situation: their narcissism is deeply hurt by the necessity for exposing a serious deficiency in a function which serves as an important source of narcissistic grati- fication.63 The greatest threat in using a new language is the fear of appearing comic. The risk of losing face or making a fool of oneself engenders a great deal of stress and fear. Stengel thinks that using a new language may give the learner the feeling of wearing a fancy 6 dress. This feeling can inhibit the learning of the target language. In reporting her experience with language shock, Jones describes her embarrassment and resentment at the way the Indonesians laughed at the awkward and non-fluent Indonesian spoken by her and her friends. So great was her anxiety she was unable to use even simple sentences after such incidents. She thinks her fear of appearing comic and her frustration and dissatisfaction in being unable to express an idea in 19 Indonesian inhibited her use of the language.65 A conflict between the aims and goals of the school and the teachers for the learners and the learner's personal goals in second language learning, as well as a variation in learning strategies across cultures can contribute a great deal to the learner's anxiety. Strevens observes that many school language programs hold unrealistic aims for learner's terminal achievements--aims which are beyond the ability of the average learner (e.g., the teaching of literature to the students who have not as yet mastered the language enough to comprehend and appreciate it). Such unrealistic aims serve only to create in students anxiety regarding their own abilities to learn. Moreover, the goals of the teacher may not always be the goals of the students. For example, some of the common goals of the teacher are "to cover a certain amount of material, to do a creditable pro- fessional job or to try out a new approach" but some of the more prob- able goals of ESL students are "to learn something worthwhile in English, to gain recognition, or to fulfill requirements."67 Saville-Troike shows that learning strategies vary with people of different countries. In the U.S., for example, learning involves a great deal of verbal interaction, and students are encouraged to be independent and original and to learn by the process of trial-and- error. Speed is considered an important component in the learning pro- cess. In many cultures, however, students learn primarily by rote memory or by observation. Unless they are sure of themselves, stu- dents are not encouraged to guess or to express their opinions, for failure is considered humiliating.68 In citing the example of the Middle Eastern students, Parker shows 20 that having come from a paternalistic society, generally authoritarian in nature, they are imitative rather than creative and thus find it difficult to adapt to the educational system in the U.S.-~a system that requires independent research and original thinking.69 It is inevitable, therefore,for students accustomed to different kinds of learning Strategies in their own countries to experience dislocation and anxiety in the new learning environment and be unable to function as effectively as they did in their own culture. In her report of her personal experience in language learning in Tunisia and Iran, Francine Schumann has shown how cross-cultural adjustments in the language classroom can affect a language student. In Tunisia, for example, the teacher expected students to memorize dialogues perfectly--a requirement which Schumann felt was unnecessary and a waste of time that could be utilized for other language learning activities. This led to anxiety and embarrassment on the part of the learner, for her performance was judged according to the teacher's expectations. Non-acceptance of such a teaching method led to rejec- tion and withdrawal symptoms such as passivity in class, cutting up during class, or leaving class early, walking out on examinations, or Skipping class altogether.7O It is also to be noted that methods of instruction in the ESL classroom are often largely dependent on drilling and mimicry, tech- niques which further emphasizes the infantile impression of the learner. Moreover, the learners often find themselves unable to articulate the vowels they are expected to make because they can't move their tongues in the right way. This can be an especially humili- ating and threatening experience for people highly educated in their 21 own native language, if the teacher does not perceive their difficulty and exerts undue pressure for them to produce the correct sounds. Gardner shows that anxiety can also result from the over-zealous attempt of the teacher to develop communicative competence in the learner before he is ready for it nor can welcome it. He also notes the unfair expectation of many teachers for foreign Students to achieve near-native mastery of the language in the Shortest time available.71 It has been demonstrated that many factors are present in the personal life and in the instructional situation to contribute to the anxiety of a second language teacher. Schumann sums up the problem of anxiety in the ESL classroom by pointing out that inhibitions must be reduced in order for the learner to acquire the second language, but "culture shock" and other factors serve to increase the anxiety level of the learner, thus leading to inhibition and reduction of ego permeability. The learner then finds himself caught in a circular trap. At some point, therefore, the circle must be broken, and how this is to be done has become the major issue in second language educa- tion. Research on Anxiety and Learning In recent years, especially, there has been a proliferation of research on anxiety in learning situations. Reports often indicated 72 varying results. For example, results of studies done by Montague, 73 74 . 75 Farber and Spence; Spence, Farber and McFann; and Nicholson showed that low-anxiety subjects performed better than high-anxiety 22 subjects in learning tasks, but findings of studies by Taylor;76 Spence and Farber;77 and Spence and Taylor78 indicated that high- anxiety subjects were superior to low-anxiety subjects in their per- formance. Studies done by Kalish et a1.79 and Feshback and Loeb80 in conditions where ego-involvement was low found that anxiety was unrelated to performance. The discrepancy can be explained by such intervening variables as complexity of task, the subjects' level of intelligence, and the degree of familiarity subjects have with the learning task. Studies by Taylor, for example, have shown that in simple tasks (i.e., those of conditioning variety), high—anxiety subjects tend to improve in their performance, but in complex or difficult learning tasks, anxiety leads to a decrement in performance.81 Gaudry and Spielberger explain the difference by relating the effects of anxiety to the relative strength of the correct and competing tendencies evoked by the learn- ing task. In simple tasks, the correct response is stronger than the competing or task irrelevant responses; hence high anxiety will serve as a drive to facilitate performance. In complex or difficult tasks, however, the competing or task irrelevant tendencies are stronger and serve to interfere with the performance of the task, thus leading to decrement in learning.82 They also believe that repeated practices are likely to strengthen task-relevant responses; hence high anxiety can facilitate learning at a later stage in learning, although in the initial stages of learning it can be deterimental to performance. Another intervening variable believed to be responsible for the differential effects of anxiety on learning is the intelligence level of learners. Studies by Denny,84 Katahr85 and Spielberger86 show that 23 anxiety facilitates learning at upper levels of intelligence; that is, at lower levels of intelligence low—anxiety Subjects perform better than high-anxiety subjects. In an investigation of the effects of anxiety and intelligence on paired—associate learning, for example, Gaudry and Spielberger reported the following findings: (1) at the initial stage of learning, high anxiety facilitated learning for high IQ subjects but had a debilitating effect on low IQ subjects; (2) at later stages of learn- ing, high anxiety had a facilitating effect on the performance of both high- and low-IQ subjects; and (3) at both stages of learning high-IQ subjects performed better than low-IQ subjects. Spielberger interprets the findings to Show that students with high intelligence level can achieve good grades independent of anxiety level. According to Spence's theory of emotionally based drive, for the high—IQ learners, anxiety actually provides the increased motivation needed to stimulate greater effort in their academic work.87 Researchers have also shown that the effects of anxiety on an individual is often determined by his perception of the anxiety situa- tion. In assessing the effects of anxiety on performance, Verma and Nijhawan think that what is more important than the task or anxiety itself is the cognitive appraisal of the situation by high anxiety persons. Anxiety will have a debilitating effect on learning only if the high anxiety subject perceives the situation as threatening. Howard and Scott observe two modes of behavior in an individual's response to threat or anxiety: (1) the assertive response and (2) the divergent response. In the first, the person perceives of anxiety as a challenge and meets the problem squarely. He then mobilizes all the 24 resources available and selects those that are most appropriate for coping with the problem. Energies will then be channelled toward a proper completion of a task. In the second, the person diverts his energies and resources away from the anxiety confronting him and psychologically withdraws from the field or reacts with aggression towards frustrating objects rather than focus on the solution of the problem.89 Rosenweig sees the assertive response as a need persistent response. It is goal—oriented behavior directed towards the gratifi- cation of a need. He views the divergent response as an ego-defensive behavior in which case the individual is primarily concerned wtih maintaining his self—esteem. In his concern to defend his ego, the individual ceases or reduces his attack on the task at hand. One form of ego-defensive behavior is for the individual to avoid tackling the task so that even if he fails, he can protect himself by claiming that his failure was due to the fact that he did not really try.90 This is consistent with Atkinson's description of the kinds of drive found in an individual. One is energized by the achievement motive, as is indicated by a disposition to approach success. The second is indicated by an avoidant tendency which represents the indi- vidual's attempt to avoid failure or the shame and humiliation con- nected with failure.91 Considering anxiety in the light of the above responses, it can be assumed that anxiety will not necessarily result in decrement in performance. According to Taylor's perception of fear or anxiety as a . . . 2 . . motivation or drive,9 stress may actually be beneficial to performance 25 as it has been demonstrated by individuals who work more effectively under stress. In assessing the effects of these two kinds of responses to anxiety in relation to performance, Atkinson asserts: . . . the stronger the achievement motive relative to the motive to avoid failure, the higher the subjective proba— bility of success, given stated odds. The stronger the motive to avoid failure relative to the achievement motive, the higher the subjective probability of failure, given stated odds or any other objective basis for inferring the strength of expectancy. In learning and performance situations, Sarason et al. view the two types of responses as task-relevant and task-irrelevant responses. Task—relevant responses refer to responses directed toward the comple- tion of a task, while task-irrelevant responses refer to divergent responses such as self—centered feelings of inadequacy and avoidant behaviors which will exert disruptive influences on the performance of a task. Improvement or decrement in performance is therefore dependent on the strength of the task—relevant or task—irrelevant 94 responses. Atkinson and Litwin explain the theory by showing that when a person's desire to achieve success is stronger than his motive to avoid failure, the resultant conflict is always positive, no matter what the level of difficulty in the task. In contrast to this, when the motive to avoid failure is stronger, then the resultant approach- avoidance conflict is avoidant motivation for all levels of difficulty. This means that a person so motivated will find all achievement tasks unattractive, particularly areas of intermediate difficulty. He will perform the task only when constrained by social pressures; otherwise 26 he will avoid the task or perform only poorly. This leads to a decre- ment in performance because of the conflict engendered by competing avoidant tendencies. Sarason et al. observe that task-relevant responses are indicated by an increase in effort and concentration and procedural strategies which serve to enhance or facilitate learning and reduce anxiety. Task-irrelevant responses are evident in thoughts concerning the con- sequences of failure and strategies to protect one from loss of self— esteem and will have an interfering or debilitating effect on learning and performance.9 In sum, investigation of the relationship between anxiety and learning in educational settings have shown that, while the findings of a few studies have indicated that high anxiety facilitates perfor- mance, most of them showed results that consistently pointed to a negative relationship between anxiety and various measures of learning and academic achievement. It is also apparent that variations in learning environment, the nature of the learning task, the levels of intelligence found in subjects investigated and their response to anxiety situations can have an appreciable influence on the relation- ship between anxiety and school performance. In the area of second language learning, few studies have been undertaken to investigate the relationship between anxiety and success in second language acquisition. Of the few studies done, anxiety has been examined as one of a cluster of affective variables rather than as a single factor influencing second language acquisition. In 1976 a study involving 63 students in a French immersion pro- gram and 68 students in the English program with French as a second 27 language was conducted by Swain and Burnaby in an attempt to examine the relationship between specific personality traits such as quickness in grasping new concepts and perfectionist tendencies and second lan- guage scores. Findings of the study showed that anxiety has a high negative correlation with the scores that students received in the BEP Test de Lecture——a French reading test given to the French immer- sion students only. This has been interpreted to Show that the high- anxiety students are less likely to perform well in a test of reading in the second language. It was also noted that no significant corre- lation was obtained with any other proficiency measures used in the study.97 In another study done by Tucker et al. with three groups of grade seven students, findings indicated a correlation between anxiety as one of a cluster of variables in a factor analysis and one measure of French proficiency.9 Backman, in a study designed to examine the attitudinal and moti- vational variables influencing the acquisition of English by 21 Vene- zuelan students at Boston University, employed two methods: controlled interview and measurement of the variables by means of a bilingual adaptation of the attitude scales developed by Gardner et al. Of the eight scales used to measure such attitudes as interest in foreign languages and need achievement, one was used to measure anxiety in the English class. Results of the study showed that the two lowest acheivers received the highest and lowest scores on the anxiety mea- sure she used.99 In another study done with foreign language students, Chastain observed the debilitating effect of anxiety on students of the French 28 audio-lingual program in that results of his study showed a signifi- cant negative correlation between test anxiety and final course grades. With the German and Spanish students in the traditional program, how- ever, he found a positive correlation between their test and anxiety scores, that is, anxiety appears to be a significant predictor of suc- cess in their case. Chastain concludes that "perhaps some concern about a test is a plus while too much anxiety can produce negative results."100 The most recent study was undertaken by Kleinmann to determine the relationship between the syntactic structures in English avoided by foreign students and the syntactic Structures of the students' native languages, on the assumption that students are likely to avoid English structures that differ most markedly from those of their native languages. A corollary purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the avoidance behavior of the subjects and their anxiety scores as measured by an adaptation of the facilitating and debilitating anxiety scales developed by Alpert and Haber. It was assumed that those who were high on facilitating anxiety would employ English structures normally avoided by their native language group. Findings showed that subjects high on debilitating anxiety avoided certain structures in English while subjects high on facilitating - . . 101 anx1ety tended to use the structures aVOided by their classmates. 29 Importance of Research on Anxiety in the ESL Classroom In recent years there has been a proliferation of research on anxiety and its effects on learning. A review of the literature has shown that few studies have investigated the effects of anxiety in the second language learning situation and even fewer have looked into the problem of anxiety in the ESL classroom. I feel that research on anxiety in the ESL classroom is important for the following reasons: 1. Psychologists and educators are increasingly more aware that anxiety can be a central problem in the educational and classroom experiences of learners. Sinclair points out that "the area of research concerned with the influence of anxiety on human learning and performance has significance for both educational practice and psycho— logical theory."102 Anxiety can exert its influence by erecting psychological barriers (i.e., barriers which inhibit confidence, lead to feelings of insecurity, and serve to block learning). As Curran has observed, anxiety to a certain extent, has a positive effect in encouraging commitment and involvement, but beyond a certain point, it has a debilitating effect on learning in that it creates a defensive "purely internalized learning with minimal kind of learning--a form of internalization." In other words, the learner gives the appearance of having learned by achieving an acceptable grade, but, when the course is completed, the newly learned material is quickly forgotten. O3 Anxiety can reduce an individual's capacity to learn, thus pre- venting him from achieving his full potentials. An anxious person is less motivated to achieve because his apprehension of the negative 3O consequences outweighs his projections of gain from the learning experience. Maslow holds that anxiety, especially when it is extreme, kills curiosity for learning as well as the desire for exploration. Its debilitating effects can manifest themselves in incuriosity, learning difficulties or psuedo-stupidity. On the other hand, "the anxiety free person can be more bold and more courageous and can explore and theorize for the sake of knowledge itself."104 Research has shown that a safe and non-anxious atmosphere can help a student to utilize his cognitive powers more fully. Research on anxiety in the ESL classroom is especially important, for, accord- ing to Liddell, "anxiety accompanies intellectual activity as its shadow, . . . the more we know of the nature of anxiety, the more we will know of intellect."105 Moreover, research findings have indi- cated that second language learning is a creative constructive pro- cess in which learners utilize their cognitive organizers to hypothe- size and internalize rules regarding the new language. Also with the increasing demands for individualized instruction to suit variations in abilities and personalities of the learners, the need for bringing together the findings of research on anxiety and achievement has become more apparent. More importantly, such findings will Show teachers how to structure learning situations to allow both the low- and the high-anxious students to achieve their full potentials in acquiring the target language. 2. A person learning a new language, especially in the country where the target language is Spoken, has to give up the security of using his own native language for communicating his thoughts and feelings to using new and unfamiliar words. This is likely to destroy 31 his feelings of control and create in him a feeling of helplessness which can lead to a negative cognitive set and resultant feelings of depression, passivity and defeatism. When a learner is in the grip of helplessness, he will believe that it is impossible for him to master the second language no matter how much effort he exerts. Every minor problem then becomes for him an insurmountable obstacle. On the other hand, Corah and Boffa have pointed out that even a potentially aversive situation will appear less threatening if an individual can feel himself in control of the situation,106 for, according to Averill, the perception of control over events determines behavior to a greater or lesser extent.107 Maslow holds that a cogni- tive appraisal of a situation is one of the ways for coping with anxiety. What appears to be unfamiliar, mysterious, unexpected and threatening can become familiar, predictable, manageable and controll- able with a knowledge and understanding of the nature of anxiety. Such knowledge will not only have "a growing-forward function, but also an anxiety-reducing function."108 In the ESL situation, therefore, an investigation of anxiety- inducing factors as well as the nature of anxiety will not only help the learners to better understand themselves and thus enhance their feelings of controllability and predictability but also help the teachers to plan classroom situations that will reduce the anxiety of the learners to give them a feeling of control over the learning sit- uation. With control will come the perception that sustained effort in studying and practicing the new language will lead to a mastery of the language. With control also will come the ability to adapt and change as the new learning situation demands. Language learning can 32 be a painful experience for some learners, but its negative influence can be ameliorated by providing learners with the proper atmosphere for learning. 3. Often times students are compelled to take ESL classes by their department chairman or major professor because of their defici- ency in English. For many their acceptance into the academic program or their chance at an assistantship is dependent on the grades they achieve in the ESL program. Their anxiety over this, together with the stress of having to adapt and adjust to a new language and cul- ture, put them in an apprehensive state before the course even begins. This negative predisposition is often responsible for the very failure they are trying to avoid.109 According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need for security-- the desire to feel safe, secure, unanxious and unafraid--is one of the basic needs. In fact it is one of the most significant of the basic needs. If the basic need for security is not met, the increased anxiety can create a negative affective block which can prevent the learner from effectively processing the new linguistic data no matter how well it has been planned and no matter what strategies the teacher employs. Moreover, the problem is often complicated by the fact that adults are more subtle and less ready to disclose their anxiety. Attempts to repress feelings of anxiety may be so strong, the learner himself is unaware of his own state of anxiety and hence is unable to deal with its debilitating effects.110 Hence studies in factors con- tributing to anxiety and the manifestations of anxiety will help second-language learners to be more perceptive of their own anxiety 33 states and enable them to plan strategies for coping with the problem of anxiety. 4. In the ESL classroom the teacher may try to reduce anxiety by providing a warm and conducive atmosphere for learning, but it must be recognized that there are other sources of anxiety beyond the control of the teacher. It is apparent that the ESL learner will experience anxiety of one kind or another most of the time. While it is impor— tant to discover how we can reduce anxiety in the learning situation, it is even more important for us to discover how we can help the learners to cope with the problem of anxiety to turn it into a drive for greater achievement. As has been pointed out,anxiety can have a facilitating or debilitating effect on the performance of the learner. Whether it will have a facilitating or debilitating effect on the student's achievement will depend much on the response he makes to an anxiety situation or the strategy he employs to handle anxiety. If a learner can be acquainted with the factors that contribute to his anxiety and shown strategies for converting his anxiety into a motivation for success in acquiring the second language, much of the problem with the negative effects of anxiety can be eliminated. Research that will discover the strategies employed by successful second language learners to cope with the problem of anxiety will, therefore, be of special importance. 34 Purpose of the Study A review of literature has shown that there are many contributory causes of anxiety in a second language learning situation. I have also shown that anxiety can have a facilitating or debilitating influ- ence on the acquisition of a second language. While a great deal of research has been done on anxiety in learning situations, relatively few have investigated the relationship between anxiety and success in acquiring a second language, especially in the area of English as a second language. With the increasing importance accorded to the teaching of English as a second language in the U.S. and other parts of the world and with the increase in the flow of foreign Students to colleges and universities in the U.S., research on anxiety in the ESL classroom is useful for providing teachers with insights on how to structure learning situations to allow both low— and high-anxious learners to achieve their full potentials in the language learning venture, for providing learners with the feelings of control and security needed to counteract any negative influences in their learning experience, and for helping the learners to better perceive themselves and their own anxiety states so that they can discover proper strategies for handling the problem of anxiety. I therefore propose to examine the phenomenon of anxiety in the ESL classroom by collecting data from different sources: (1) anxiety measures employing students' self—assessment of their anxiety states; (2) measures involving teachers' evaluation of students' anxiety states; and (3) a series of in-depth interviews involving six case 35 study subjects, and, based on the findings of this study, suggest future directions that research on anxiety in the ESL situation can take. I will also look at the possible effects of anxiety on learn- ing, and through an examination of anxiety tests, interviews, and final tests and achievement scores of subjects at the English Language Center, I will seek answers to the following questions: 1. What are some of the more important factors contributing to anxiety in the ESL situation as they are perceived by the learners? 2. In the list of anxiety—inducing factors where does the actual task of learning the English language stand? 3. Most research on anxiety in learning situations has indi- cated a negative correlation between anxiety and academic performance. In the ESL classroom what is the relationship between anxiety and success in acquiring English as a second language as is indicated by the achievement of the subjects? 4. Spielberger has distinguished between state anxiety and trait anxiety. Can a relationship be established between state anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s State Anxiety Scale and trait anxiety as measured by the Trait Anxiety Scale? 5. How much of the anxiety can be attributed to writing appre- hension, that is, what is the relationship between state anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s State Anxiety Scale and writing apprehension as measured by Daly and Miller's scale for writing apprehension? 6. What is the effect of anxiety on their performance in the ESL classroom as perceived by the learners themselves? 36 7. What strategies are generally employed by the ESL learners to handle their anxiety? 8. In general, does a teacher's perception of the students' anxiety state correspond with the students' self-perception of their own anxiety level? If not, what are the implications? NOTES 1Stephen Cooper, "The Thesis and Dissertation in Graduate ESL Programs," TESOL QuarterlYJ 12, No. 2 (1978), 133. 2Eugene A. Nida, "Some Psychological Problems in Second Language Learning," Language Learning, 8, No. l & 2 (1957-58), 7; and Joan Rubin, "What the 'Good Language Learner' Can Teach Us," TESOL Quarterly, 9, No. 1 (1975), 44. 3Heidi Dulay and Marina Burt, "Remarks on Creativity in Language Acquisition," in Viewpoints on English as a Second Language, ed. Marina Burt, Heidi Dulay, and Mary Finocchiaro (New York: Regents Publishing Co., 1977), pp. 119-120. John H. Schumann, "Second Language Acquisition Research: Getting a More Global Look at the Learner," in Papers in Second Language Acqui- sition, ed. Douglas H. Brown, Language Learning.Specia1 Issue, No. 4 (January 1976), 15. 5Ernest Hilgard, "Motivation in Learning Theory," in Psychology: A Study of Science, ed. S. Koch (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 267. 6H. Douglas Brown, "The Next 25 Years: Shaping the Revolution," in New Directions in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education, eds Marina K. Burt and Heidi C. Dulay (Washington, D.C.: TESOL, 1975), pp. 80-85. 7H. Douglas Brown, "Affective Variables in Second Language Acqui- sition," Language Learning, 23, No. 2 (1973), 231. 8Kenneth Chastain, Developing Second Language Skills: Theogy to Practice (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1976), p. 176. 9John H. Schumann, "Affective Factors and the Problem of Age in Second Language Acquisition," Language Learning, 25, No. 2 (December 1975), 232. 10Chastain, p. 282. llChastain, p. 283. 12L. S. Vigotsky, "Thought and Speech," in Psygholinguistics: A Book of Readings, ed. S. Saporta (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), pp. 534-535. 37 38 l3Schumann, "Affective Factors," 209. l4Schumann, "Second Language Acquisition Research," 15. 15A. H. Maslow, "The Need to Know and the Fear of Knowing," Journal of General Psychology, 68 (January 1963), 121. l6Thomas Scovel, "The Effect of Affect on Foreign Language Learning: A Review of the Anxiety Research," Language Learniug, 28, No. 1 (June 1978). 130. l7Chastain, p. 71. 18 . L. Schwartz, Educational ngchology: Focus on the Learner (Boston: Holbrook Press, 1972), p. 105. 19Rollo May, The Meaning of AnxieEy (New York: Ronald Press, 1950), PP- 112-113. 208. Freud, The Problem of Anxiety_(New York: Norton, 1936), p. 39. 215. Freud, pp. 72-73. 22 H. Basowitz et al., Anxiety and Stress (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955). p. 54. 23Joseph Rubinstein, The Study of Psychology (Guilford, Connecti- cut: The Dushkin Pub. Group, 1975), p. 484. 24May, pp. 190, 142. 25May. p. 194. 26D. Mechanic, Students Under Stress (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1962), p. 7. 27Charles D. Spielberger, ed., Anxiety and Behavior (New York: Academic Press, 1966), p. 4. 28Spielberger, p. 363. 29Spielberger et al., State-Trait Anxiety Inventogyfi(Palo-Alto: Consulting Psychologist Press, 1970), p. 3. 3OH. S. Sullivan, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (New York: Norton, 1953), p. 41. 31Lewis Day, Adler's Place in Psychology (London: Allen & Unwin, 1949), P. 138. 39 2Francine & John H. Schumann, "Diary of a Language Learner: An Introspective Study of Second Language Learning," in On TESOL '77 Teaching and Learning English as a Second Language: Trends in Research and Practice,€fifi3oH. Douglas Brown, Carlos Alfredo Yorio & Ruth H. Crymes (Washington, D.C.: TESOL, 1977), p. 212. 33D. M. Larsen & W. A. Smalley, BecomingyBilingual: A Guide to Language Learning (New Canaan, C.T.: Practical Anthropology, 1972), p. 4. 34 Alan Howard and Robert A. Scott, "A Proposed Framework for the Analysis of Stress in the Human Organism," Behavorial Science, 10, No. 2 (April 1965), 152. 5Schumann, "Affective Factors," 212; and Erwin Stengel, "On Learning A New Language," International Journal of Psychoanalysis 20, No. 17 (1939), 477. 36Larsen & Smalley, p. 4. 37Schumann, "Affective Factors," p. 213. 38Charles Curran, Counseling—Learning in Second Languages (Apple River, 111.: Apple River Press, 1976), p. 20. 39W. A. Smalley, "Culture Shock, Language Shock, and the Shock of Self-discovery," Practical Anthropologyle (1963), 49-50. 40 Schumann, "Diary of a Language Learner," pp. 243-244. 41Rebecca Ann Jones, "Psychological, Social and Personal Factors in Second Language Acquisition," Dissertation UCLA 1977, p. 335. 42Smalley, 52-53. Schumann, "Affective Factors," 213. . 4Alexander Guiora et al., "Empathy and Second Language Learning," Language Learning, 22, No. 1 (1972), 111-112. 45John H. Schumann, "Social Distance as a Factor in Second Lan- guage Acquisition," Language Learning_26, No. l (1976), 136-137. 46R. C. Gardner and W. E. Lambert, Attitudes and Motivation in Second—Language Learning (Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1972), p. 3. 47Stengel, 476. 48Wallace E. Lambert et al., "Attitudinal and Cognitive Aspects of Intensive Study of a Second Language," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 (1963), 363. 49Gardner and Lambert, p. 401. 40 50Nida, 8. 1 5 Stengel, 474. 52Muriel Saville-Troike, Foundations for Teaching English as a Second Language (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976), p. 47. 53 Robin Lakoff, "Linguistic Theory and the Real World," Language Learning, 25, No. 2 (1975), 309-314. 4Harvey M. Taylor, "Beyond Words: Nonverbal Communication in EFL," in New Directions in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education,euh5.Marina K. Burt & Heidi C. Dulay (Washingon, D.C.: TESOL, 1975). p. 179. 5Carmen Judith Nine—Curt, "Non-Verbal Communication in the Class- room: A Frill or a Must?" in New Directions in Second Language Learn- ing, Teaching and Bilingual Education, eds. Marina K. Burt & Heidi C. Dulay (Washington, D.C.: TESOL, 1975), pp. 172-174. 56Taylor, 181. 57Smalley, 54. 8Curran, 20. 59Jones, p. 333. 6OStengel 476. 61Smalley, 54. 2Curran, 49. 6 3Stengel, 476. 64Stengel, 477-478. 65Jones, p. 334. 6Peter Strevens, "Causes of Failure and Conditions for Success in the Learning and Teaching of Foreign Languages," in On TESOL '77 Teaching and Learning English as a Second Language: Trends in Research and Practiceg eds.li. Douglas Brown, Carlos Alfredo Yorio, & Ruth H. Crymes (Washington, D.C.: TESOL, 1977), p. 269. 67Carol A. Puhl, "A Practical Humanism for Developing Communicative Competence in the ESL Learner," in New Directions in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education,eds. Marina K. Burt & Heidi C. Dulay (Washington, D.C.: TESOL, 1975), p. 198. 68Saville-Troike, pp. 57-58. 41 69Orin D. Parker, "Cultural Clues to the Middle Eastern Student," Occasional Paper, No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: American Friends of the Middle East, 1976), p. 4. 0Schumann, "Diary of a Language Learner," 244-246. 71R. C. Gardner, "Motivational Variables in Second Language Learn- ing," Research Bulletin, No. 298 (London, Ontario: University of Western Ontario, 1974), p. 11. 72E. K. Montague, "The Role of Anxiety in Social Rote Learning," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45 (1953), 91-96. 73J. E. Farber and K. W. Spence, "Complex Learning and Condition as a Function of Anxiety," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 45 (1953), 120-125. 74K. W. Spence et al., "The Relation of Anxiety (Drive)-Level to Performance in Competitional and Noncompetitional Paired-Associates Learning," Journal of Experimental PsychongYJ 52 (1956), 296-305. 75 W. M. Nicholson, "The Influence of Anxiety Upon Learning: Interference or Drive Increment?" Journal of Personality, 25 (1958), 303-319. ‘ I7 I 6Janet A. Taylor, "The Relationship of Anxiety to the Conditioned Eyelid Response," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41 (1951), 81-92. 77 K. W. Spence and I. E. Farber, "Conditioning and Extinction as a Function of Anxiety," Journal of Experimental Psyehology, 45 (1953), 116-119. 78 K. W. Spence and Janet A. Taylor, "Anxiety and Strength of the UCS as Determiners of the Amount of Eyelid Conditioning," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 42 (1951), 183-188. 79 H. I. Kalish et al., "The Effects of Anxiety and Experimentally Induced Stress on Verbal Learning," Journal of General Psychology, 59 (1958), 87-95. 805. Feshbach and A. Loeb, "A Further Experimental Study of a Response-Interference Versus a Drive Facilitation Theory of the Effect of Anxiety Upon Learning," Journal of Personality, 27, No. 4 (1959), 497-506. 81Taylor, 307-310. 82Eric Gaudry and Donald Fitzgerald, "Test Anxiety, Intelligence and Academic Achievement," in Anxiety and Educational Achievement,eds. Eric Gaudry & Charles D. Spielberger (Sydney: John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty Ltd., 1971), p. 155. 42 83Eric Gaudry and Charles D. Spielberger, Anxiety and Educational Achievement ( Sydney: John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty Ltd., 1971), p. 58. 84J. P. Denny, "Effect of Anxiety and Intelligence on Concept Formation," Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72 (1966), p. 600; Gaudry & Spielberger, p. 57. 85 M. Katahn, "Interaction of Task Difficulty and Ability in Com- plex Learning Situations," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3 (1966), 475-479. 86C. D. Spielberger, "Theory and Research on Anxiety," in Anxiety and Behavior, ed. C. D. Spielberger (New York: Academic Press, 1966), pp. 3-19. 87Gaudry & Spielberger, p. 59. 88P. Verma and H. Nijhawan, "The Effect of Anxiety, Reinforcement, and Intelligence on the Learning of a Difficult Task," Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 22, No. 2 (October 1976), 306. 89Howard & Scott, 147. 903. Rosenzweig, "An Outline of Frustration Theory,’ in Person- ality and the Behavior Disorders, V. 1, ed. J. McV. Hunt (New York: Ronald, 1944), pp. 382-383. 91J. W. Atkinson, "Motivational Determinants of Risk-taking Behavior," Psychological Review, 64, No. 6 (1957), 360. 2Janet Taylor, "Drive Theory and Manifest Anxiety," Psychological Bulletin, 53, No. 4 (July 1956), 303. 93Atkinson, 364. 948. B. Sarason et al., "The Effect of Differential Instructions on Anxiety and Learning," Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 47, No. 2 (April 1952), 561. 95J. W. Atkinson and G. H. Litwin, "Achievement Motive and Test Anxiety as Motives to Approach Success and Avoid Failure," Journal of Abnormal Social Psyehology, 60, No. 1 (January 1960), 52. 96S. B. Sarason et al., 561. 97M. Swain and B. Burnaby, "Personality Characteristics and Second Language Learning in Young Children: A Pilot Study," Working Papers in Bilingualism, 11 (1976), 115-128. 8Tucker et al., "Affective, Cognitive and Social Factors in Sec- ond Language Acquisition," Canadian Modern Language Review, 23 (1976), 225. 43 9Nancy Backman, "Two Measures of Affective Factors as They Relate to Progress in Adult Second-Language Learning," Working Papers in Bilingualism, 10 (1976), 123. 100 K. Chastain, "Affective and Ability Factors in Second Language Acquisition," Language Learning, 25 (1975), 160. 101 H. Kleinmann, "Avoidance Behavior in Adult Second Language Acqui- sition," Language Learning, 17 (1977), 105. 2Kenneth E. Sinclair, "The Influence of Anxiety on Several Mea— sures of Classroom Performance,” in Anxiety and Educational Achieve— ment,efls.ZEric Gaudry & Charles D. Spielberger (Sydney: John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty Ltd., 1971), p. 95. 103Charles A. Curran, Understanding; A Necessagy Ingredient in Human Belonging (Apple River, 111.: Apple River Press, 1978), pp. 21- 22, 81. 104Maslow, 122—123. 105May, p. 99. 106N. L. Corah and J. Boffa, "Perceived Control, Self-Observation and Response to Aversive Stimulation," Journal of Personality and Social Peychology, 16 (1970), 1. 107 J. R. Averill, "Personal Control Over Aversive Stimuli and Its Relationship to Stress," Psychological Bulletin, 80, No. 4 (October 1973), 287. 108Maslow, 121. 109Chastain, pp. 154, 282. llOMaslow, 121. CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY Introduction In order to examine anxiety and its relation to second language learning, I have elected to study a sample of students in an ESL class- room at the English Language Center of Michigan State University. The problems considered in the study include (1) the most effective method for collecting data on anxiety in the ESL classroom; (2) the relation- ship of anxiety to success in learning English as a second language; (3) the relationship between state anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s A-State Scale and trait anxiety as meaSured by the A-Trait Scale; (4) the relationship between state anxiety and writing appre- hension; (5) the relationship between students' self—report of their anxiety states and teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states; (6) the factors that contribute to anxiety in the ESL learning situa- tion; (7) the effects of anxiety on the performance of subjects as perceived by them; (8) the strategies that are employed by learners to control anxiety; and (9) the anxiety factors that are common to sub- jects. 44 45 Definition of Terms The following are the definitions for some of the more common terms as they are understood in the context of the study: Anxiety. In the ESL situation, anxiety refers to the basic feelings of apprehension and insecurity resulting from the perception of a threat to the learner's basic cultural values and native identity as well as his ability to cope with the new culture, new language and new learning environment. This feeling of insecurity is intensified by a sense of helplessness and a fear of the exposure of the learner's inadequacy as well as what he perceives to be a sense of inferiority in comparison to native speakers of the language. Unlike neurotic anx- iety, it is a normal anxiety that "can be confronted constructively on the level of conscious awareness or can be relieved if the objective situation is altered."1 In this study, anxiety refers to the subjects' worry and concern over personal problems. State Anxiety (A-State). Described by Spielberger et a1. as a "transitory emotional state or condition of the human organism that is characterized by subjective, consciously perceived feelings of ten- sion and apprehension and heightened autonomic nervous system activ— ' it can vary in intensity and fluctuate over time and situation. ity,’ In this study it refers to the anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s A-State Scale and arrived at by an average of the A-State scores obtained from three different administrations. Trait Anxiety (A-Trait). This is defined as the "relatively stable individual differences in anxiety proneness." It refers to the 46 more permanent feelings of insecurity and apprehension that have become a part of an individual's personality trait. It indicates a difference in the disposition of an individual to respond to stressful situations with varying levels of anxiety and "the latent disposition to manifest a certain type of reaction."3 In this study trait anxiety is represented by the scores obtained by Spielberger et al.'s A-Trait Scale. Writing Apprehension. This refers to the stress one experiences under the demand for writing competency. Individuals with writing apprehension, according to Daly and Miller, would fear evaluation of their writing and seek to avoid writing whenever possible. In class- room situations such individuals would consistently fail to turn in compositions, skip class when writing is required, and would seldom enroll voluntarily in courses where writing is known to be demanded.4 In the ESL situation, writing apprehension refers to the fear and anxiety experienced by the learners in their attempts to think and write in the new language because of insufficient vocabulary to express their ideas. Writing apprehension in this study is measured by Daly and Miller's scale for writing apprehension. Facilitating Anxiety, Anxiety facilitates learning when it acts as a drive or motivation to bring about improvement in performance in a learning situation. In the ESL classroom, the facilitating effects of anxiety are shown by the improvement the learner makes in mastering the new language despite the stress he experiences. Debilitating Anxiepy, Anxiety debilitates when it interferes with learning and brings about a decrement in performance. In the 47 ESL situation, anxiety debilitates when it affects subjects' ability to acquire the English language. ESL. This stands for English as a second language. An ESL situa- tion is, therefore, a situation in which English is learned as a second language. ELC. The English Language Center at Michigan State University provides remedial English programs for foreign students enrolled at the university. Classes at the ELC provide for instruction in read- ing, speaking and listening, grammar and writing. Students who have achieved a certain level of proficiency in English after a term or two at the ELC are then permitted to be enrolled in formal academic pro- grams in the university. Target language. This refers to the second language that the learner is trying to acquire. For the purpose of this study, the tar- get language is English. D- and E-level Students. Students enrolled at the ELC are assigned to any of five different levels (A, B, C, D, E) on the basis of their proficiency in the English language, as determined by the scores they achieve in the English proficiency tests administered by the ELC to foreign students seeking enrollment at Michigan State Uni- versity. The tests have been designed to measure the proficiency of the students in reading, writing, grammar, aural comprehension and speaking, with the assumption that native speakers of English will achieve a score of lOO-point average in these tests. Students are categorized into different levels according to the following average scores: 49 or below--A-Level (Beginners), 50-59--B-Level (Lower Inter- mediate), 60-69-—C-Level (Higher Intermediate), 70-79--D-Level 48 (Advanced), 80 or more-~E-Level (Advanced). The proficiency of the D- and E-Level students as evaluated in the English Proficiency Chart provided by CIEP (The Consortium on Intensive English Programs) is as follows: D-Level-—Students in this level generally have a fair control of most English structures although their control of the language may weaken under stress. In writing, they have little understanding of paragraph organization of expository or argumentative essays. They are able to read and understand most expository materials with regular use of all—English dictionaries and material in their academic fields with frequent use of a bilingual dictionary. They are able to under- stand most informal conversation and participate effectively in social and academic conversations. E-Level--Students in this level are able to write with some ease but with occasional errors and misuseof idioms. Under time or test pressures, their control of the language may weaken. They generally show little understanding of organization of expository/argumentative essays but have sufficient background for rapid development of control and self-correction. They are able to read and understand general expository materials and texts in their academic areas. They are able to understand most conversations and most lectures on familiar subjects at normal speed and can participate effectively in social and academic conversations. Achievement. This describes the gain in scores made by subjects within a quarter. In this study, the achievement scores were arrived at by subtracting the average of the initial test scores on reading, writing, grammar, and Speaking and listening achieved by students at 49 the ELC at the beginning of the quarter with the average of the final test scores achieved by them at the end of the quarter. For the D- and E-level students, no gain in scores is indicative of low achievement, a gain of 3-5 points is indicative of normal achievement, and a gain of 10 points or more shows high achievement. Instrumental Motivation. This is defined as the desire to learn a language for utilitarian reasons such as "getting ahead in one's occupation, gaining social recognition from one's own membership groups, or acquiring skills in the second language in order to get into another cultural community to exploit, manipulate, or control 5 with personal ends only in mind." Integrative Motivation. This is defined as the desire of the learner to acquire the second language in order to meet and communi- cate with valued members of the target language group "to the point of 6 eventually being accepted as a member of that other group." Assumptions Governing the Study In planning the investigation of anxiety in an ESL situation, I have made the following assumptions: 1. All ESL learners have anxiety of one kind or another. Because of the culture and language shock they experience, their anxiety level is higher than that of an ordinary individual. 2. Because anxiety is an affective response to external as well as internal stimuli, the anxiety level fluctuates according to time and situation. 50 3. Anxiety can have a facilitating or a debilitating effect on the learning of a second language. 4. The State—Trait Anxiety Inventory measures transitory state anxiety peculiar to each situation as well as the more permanent trait anxiety of the subjects involved in the study. 5. Research on anxiety will provide insight on how a second language can be learned more effectively. Instrumentation To obtain measures and evaluation of the subjects' anxiety level, three instruments were used: (1) The State-Trait Anxiety Inventopy developed by Spielberger et al., (29 Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension, and (3) a teacher's evaluation scale developed from an adaptation of Spielberger et al.'s A-State Scale. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure subjects' response with varying intensities of anxiety to the language learning experience over a period of ten weeks. The instrument was developed by C. D. Spielberger, R. L. Gorsuch, and R. Lushene in 1964 for the purpose of investigating anxiety phenomena in normal adults. This self-evaluation questionnaire provides for measures of two distinct anxiety concepts: state anxiety (A-State) and trait anxiety (A-Trait). The A-State Scale has been designed to measure transitory anxiety, the anxiety experienced by subjects in a particular situation, at a particular point in time. It consists of 20 statements requiring sub- jects to indicate how they feel at a specific moment in time (see Appendix A). Examples of the statements are "I feel upset," "I feel 51 calm," "I am tense," "I feel over-excited and rattled." Subjects respond to each item by rating the intensity of their feelings on a 4-point scale with the following categories: not at all, somewhat, moderately so, very much so. The A—Trait Scale has been designed to measure trait anxiety, the more permanent manifestations of anxiety in individuals (see Appendix A). It consists of such statements as "I take disappointments so keenly that I can't put them Out of my mind," "I feel pleasant," "I become tense and upset when I think about my present concerns." Sub- jects respond to each item by rating themselves on the following 4-point scale: almost never, sometimes, often, almost always. The test-retest reliability of the A-State Scale was .33 and .16 for the males and females respectively for a time period of 1 hour, .54 and .27, for a 20-day period, and .33 and .31, over a lO4-day period. The relatively low test-retest correlation of the A-State Scale can be explained by the fact that the scale has been designed to measure a transitory emotional state and should reflect the influence of unique situational factors existing at the time of testing. The test-retest reliability of the A—Trait Scale for a 1-hour time period was .84 for the males and .76 for the females; for a 20- day interval, .86 and .76 for the females; and for a lO4-day interval, .73 for the males and .77 for the females. In an evaluation of a number of different anxiety inventories, Lewitt concluded that the STAI is "the most carefully developed instru- ment, from both theoretical and methodological standpoint."7 Since the instrument has been designed for native speakers of English, I conducted a pilot study one week before the research was 52 begun to discover the problems that non-native speakers would have in responding to items in the questionnaires and to determine the time needed for filling out the questionnaires. Results of the pilot Study indicated that Subjects had problems following the directions given for filling out the questionnaires—- that there was a need to provide clearer and more detailed instruc- tions. Subjects also had difficulty in understanding certain vocabu- lary items--mainly idiomatic expressions like "jittery," "blue," "high- Strung," and "rattled" found in the statements that made up the ques— tionnaires. Based on the above findings, I modified the instruments to provide for clearer and more detailed instructions as well as more explanation of vocabulary items by way of definitions of the idiomatic expressions enclosed in parentheses, e.g., the statement "I am jittery" was clarified by the additional explanation (very nervous) and "I feel secure" by the addition of (safe). I also provided space in between each statement for additional comments or explanation sub- jects wished to make regarding their response to the Statements in the questionnaires (the revised instruments are provided in Appendix A).8 The instrument for measuring writing apprehension was developed by Daly and Miller in 1975 to measure anxiety in writing (see Appen- dix A). It consists of 26 statements asking subjects to indicate their agreement with the statements with varying degrees. Examples of the statements are "I avoid writing," "I have no fear of my writing being evaluated," and "My mind seems to go blank when I start to work on a composition." Subjects indicate their responses by rating the degree of their agreement on a 5—point scale: strongly agree, agree, are uncertain, disagree, or strongly disagree. 53 The reliability of the instrument as obtained by a split half technique was .910, and it has a test-relability of .923 over an inter- val of one week. This instrument was field tested together with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventogy, and based on the results, additional explanation was provided for items which subjects of the pilot Study had diffi- culty in understanding. Space was also provided between items for subjects' comments and explanation. The teacher's evaluation scale was developed from an adaptation of items in the A-State Scale to provide teachers with a measure for evaluating the anxiety States of their students. For example, the item ”I feel calm" in the A—State Scale appears as "Student appears calm," and the item ”I feel nervous" appears as "Student appears nervous"in the teacher's evaluation scale (see Appendix A). Space was also provided in between items for teachers to make additional comments . Selection of Subjects The subjects who participated in the formal study were composed of two groups: (1) 43 D- and E-level adult foreign students enrolled in the ESL writing class at the English Language Center of Michigan State University, in the winter quarter of 1979, and (2) six subjects --5 males and l female--selected from the larger group for in-depth case Studies. The 43 subjects were predominantly male: there were 3? males and only 11 females. They came from a wide diversity of language 54 backgrounds. Countries represented included Canada, The Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Japan, Korea, Mauritania, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, South America, Turkey and Vietnam. The three D- and two E-level writing classes from which the sub- jects were drawn represented the advanced classes at the English Lan- guage Center and made up about thirty—four percent of the students enrolled there. At the time of the study, most subjects had been enrolled in the English Language Center for no more than two terms. Subjects were selected from the advanced classes because the collec- tion of the data involved the filling out of two questionnaires designed for native speakers of English. A certain level of profi- ciency in English was, therefore, necessary to ensure the subjects' understanding of the items in the questionnaires and hence to render the data more reliable. Also, to facilitate interviewing, subjects had to be comfortable with spoken English to a certain degree. Although reading, grammar and lab classes are offered on the D- level, the writing classes were chosen, because, according to the literature in the field, classes that involve the development of pro- ductive skills (speaking and writing) should generate the most anxiety in a second language learning situation. Moreover, writing in itself is often a stressful activity for many native speakers of English. For the non—native speakers of English, it should produce even more anxiety. Since this research involved the study of anxiety in the ESL classroom, I hypothesized that subjects in the D- and E-level classes would be highly anxious. While subjects had already attained a cer- tain level of proficiency in English, their anxiety level was probably 55 no lower than that of students in the beginning levels for the fol- lowing reasons: Many of the subjects had been compelled to take the ELC program because of the low scores they achieved on the TOFEL test or the English proficiency test administered to foreign students by the English Language Center as part of the university entrance test. D-level students are permitted to audit one or two courses in their major fields. E—level students are allowed to enroll in academic courses for credits but only to the extent that their academic advi- sors feel that the students are able to handle both the academic load and the English courses. Some who were already enrolled in formal academic programs had been required by the department head or major professors to enroll at the ELC because their teaching assistantships involved the use of English. Since the retaining of their assistant- ships was dependent on their achievement of an acceptable final test score at the ELC, their anxiety over their success in the classes was great. Moreover, according to the teachers, some felt that they had been unfairly evaluated and that the courses at the ELC were taking up valuable time they needed for their formal academic courses. Resent- ment and hostility toward what they perceived to be a discrimination against foreign students often raised their anxiety level. Quite a few had come to the United States for a term or two in order to learn Eng- lish. The desire to achieve as much as possible within a time limit exerted a great deal of pressure on them. Finally, most of the sub- jects involved in the study had not been enrolled in the university for more than two quarters at the time of the study. For some it was their first term in the United States. The necessity of adjusting to a new 56 country and a new learning environment added to contribute to their anxiety. Subjects involved in the case studies were 5 males and 1 female selected from the larger group of D- and E-level students. The 5 male subjects were from Puerto Rico, Mauritania, Japan, Venezuela and Turkey, and the 1 female subject was from Iran. Their ages ranged from seventeen to thirty-five and their educational background from high school graduates to M.A. graduates. Since the interviews involved the disclosing of personal information and took a great deal of their time without any sepcial privileges in return, subjects were selected on the basis of their willingness to participate in the study and to provide the information sought. They were also recommended by their teachers as students who would be most likely to provide frank and honest answers during the interviews (this being necessary in order to render the data more reliable and valuable) and whose English was proficient enough for them to communicate intelligently in the language. Procedures As has been pointed Out in the first chapter, this is an explora- tory study designed to offer a rationale for anxiety research in the ESL classroom and to investigate future directions that research may take in discovering the role and influence of anxiety in the acquisi- tion of English as a second language as well as the Strategy for handling the phenomenon of anxiety. To do this, I collected and com- pared these data on anxiety: (1) students' assessments of their own 57 anxiety obtained fron standardized measures; (2) teachers' assessments of the students' anxiety obtained by using the same measures; (3) students' descriptions of anxiety obtained by a series of inter- views. Students' Self-Assessment of Anxiety In students' self-assessment of their anxiety states, I adminis- tered the anxiety measures to the subjects at three different times over a period of ten weeks, in the winter quarter of 1979. On the second week of the quarter, I administered the self-evaluation ques- tionnaire--The State-Trait Anxiety Inventorye-to the subjects for the first time. Priorto the date scheduled for the administration of the questionnaires, I approached the teachers of the classes involved in the study and explained the purposes and procedures for administration of the questionnaires. In this first administration, subjects filled in both the state and trait anxiety scales. They completed the questionnaires with the understanding that the data were collected as part of a dissertation research and their answers would be used for research purposes only. I also emphasized that the data would not be made available to the university administration or to their teachers. To reduce anxiety connected with the filling out of questionnaires requesting personal information, I did not require subjects to put their names on the questionnaires. Each questionnaire had a coded number corresponding to a list of subjects' names known only to me and the teachers 58 involved in the study. On the questionnaires, subjects had to indi- cate only the country they were from. The directions for filling in the questionnaires were read and explained to the subjects and examples and illustrations provided on the board. Subjects were also instructed to fill in every item on the questionnaires and to ask for explanation of any item they did not understand. Teachers cooperated by helping to distribute the ques- tionnaires according to the list of subjects' names with their corre- sponding code numbers and by checking the returned questionnaires to make sure that all items had been filled in. On the fourth week of the winter quarter, just two days before the mid-term examination and at a time when the anxiety level of the subjects was likely to be influenced by the tensions of mid-term examinations, they were asked to fill in the A-State Scale and Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension. Subjects were then asked to indicate their sex on the questionnaires. The final administration of the A—State Scale was made on the eighth week of the quarter, before the anxiety level of the subjects would be influenced by final examination tensions. Subjects had to fill in only the A-State Scale. Subjects were asked to report on their anxiety states at three different times so that comparison could be made between the anxiety level of the subjects during the two ordinary situations and during a stressful situation, e.g., an examination situation. A match-pair t-test as well as a repeated measures analysis of the scores of the three administrations showed no significant difference between the scores obtained during ordinary situations and that of a stressful 59 situation; hence an average of all the three state-anxiety scores of the subjects was obtained and used to represent the state anxiety scores of the subjects. Teachers' Assessments of Students' Anxiety States Teachers' evaluation of the subjects' anxiety states was obtained by the use of the teachers' evaluation scale developed from an adapta- tion of the items in the A-State Scale. The teachers of the five classes evaluated each student in their classes according to their perception of their anxiety states. The scores were then used to com— pare with students' evaluation of their own anxiety states. Case Studies I collected the data of the case studies from the six subjects in a series of in-depth interviews over a period of two months. The interviews were scheduled at weekly intervals, with each interview lasting for an hour or more. The interview was conducted in English, and the contents of each interview recorded. During the interview subjects were told to ask for explanation of questions they did not understand. For example, when subjects showed a lack of understanding of the questions put to them, I either rephrased the questions or provided them with illustra- tion from my own experiences or that of others. Certain questions were rephrased or repeated in subsequent interviews in order to 6O solicit more information or to test the reliability of information provided by the subjects. In the final interview, I summarized all the information collected and verified with each subject to determine if my interpretation of the information was correct. Questions during the interviews explored such factors as the sub- jects' perception of their own anxiety states, the problems and situa- tions that they thought were responsible for their anxiety, the way they felt anxiety to influence their performance in the learning of the English language, the strategies they generally employed to handle and control their anxiety, and where in a number of anxiety-inducing factors did they think the actual task of learning the English lan- guage stood. Questions also focused on situations in the ESL class- rooms that subjects thought had contributed to their anxiety as well as the problems that were common to subjects. To discover the more important factors that are responsible for the anxiety of ESL learners, the six subjects involved in the case studies were given a list of what literature in TESOL had described as common factors contributing to anxiety in ESL students (see Appendix B). They were told to rank the items in order of importance. In subse- quent interviews, subjects discussed each item in the order they had listed the items and provided more details to explain why it created anxiety in them. Additional information regarding this was also pro- vided by essays that subjects had written on the topic "Things That Worry Me" in their writing class. Information on the subjects' perception of the facilitating or debilitating effects of anxiety on their performance in the ESL class- room as well as the strategies they used to control their anxiety were 61 supplied by the case study subjects during the interviews. Questions designed to solicit the above information focused on how they responded or reacted to anxiety, whether they perceived themselves to perform better under stress, and what they did to reduce their anxiety.9 Additional information on factors contributing to the writing apprehension of ESL students was solicited by means of ques- tions asking subjects to explain what caused their apprehension in the writing class. Essays written by subjects in the writing class on the topic "How Do You Like Writing Both in Your Native Language and In English?" also threw more light on this question. Analysis of Data To determine the relationship between anxiety and success in acquiring English as a second language, an intercorrelation between the state anxiety scores and subjects final course grades at the ELC and their achievement scores was obtained by Pearson product-moment correlation. To determine if subjects' anxiety was merely a temporary anxiety caused by an anxiety situation and which could be relieved if the situation was altered or a more permanent trait anxiety which could not be relieved by a change in situation, as well as to establish the relationship between the two, Pearson product-moment correlation was computed. An intercorrelation of the state anxiety scores and the scores obtained by the measure of writing apprehension was done by Pearson product-moment correlation to determine how much of the subjects' 62 anxiety was due to anxiety over writing. Finally, to determine if teachers were aware of their students' actual anxiety states, the scores of the subjects on the teachers' evaluation scale were correlated with the self-reported state-anxiety scores of the subjects by means of Pearson product-moment correlation. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences, a program provided by the MSU Computer Laboratory, was used to compute the Pearson product—moment correlation coefficient of the above mentioned pairs of variables. The following formula was used in the computation: rxy ’N-Z . It has a t- distribution with N - 2 degrees of freedom. _ 2 l rxy Summary In this chapter I have defined the terms commonly used in this study and outlined the assumptions governing the study. A description of the instruments was followed by a discussion of the procedure used in the collection of the group and case study data as well as the analysis of the group data. NOTES lRollo May, The Meaning_pf Anxiety (New York: Ronald Press, 1950). p. 194. 2Charles D. Spielberger, ed., Anxiety and Behavior (New York: Academic Press, 1966), p. 14. 3Charles D. Spielberger et al., State-Trait Anxiety Inventqpy (Palo-Alto: Consulting Psychologist Press, 1970), p. 3. 4John A. Daly and Michael D. Miller, "The Empirical Development of an Instrument to Measure Writing Apprehension," Research in the Teachingpof English, 9, No. 3 (Winter 1975), p. 244. 5R. C. Gardner and W. E. Lambert, Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning_(Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1972), p. 3. 6Gardner and Lambert, p. 3. 7E. E. Levitt, The Psychology of Anxiety (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1967), pp. 71-72. 8For a more detailed report of the Pilot Study, see Appendix C. The procedures for the case studies were approved by the Human Subjects Committee on Feb. 5, 1979. 63 CHAPTER III ANALYSIS OF GROUP DATA Introduction As part of an effort to investigate the role of anxiety in the acquisition of English as a second language, data was obtained by administering two instruments-~Spielberger et al.'s State-Trait Anxiety Inventogy and Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension-~to a group of 43 D- and E-level writing students at the ELC of Michigan State University. This chapter presents the results of the statistical computation of the data to determine the relation— ship between the following pairs of variables: (1) state anxiety and success in acquiring English, (2) state anxiety and trait anxiety, (3) state anxiety as indicated by students' report on the self- evaluation questionnaires and state anxiety as evaluated by teachers on the teachers' evaluation scale; and (4) state anxiety and writing apprehension. Results To determine the relationship between anxiety and subjects' per- formance in ESL classroom settings, I correlated the average of each 64 65 subjects' state anxiety scores with the average of final course grades achieved by subjects in reading, writing, grammar, speaking and listen- ing by using Pearson product-moment coefficient of correlation. As is shown in Table l, the correlation coefficient of -.1675 is indicative of no significant correlation between the two variables. TABLE 1 PEARSON CORRELATION OF STATE ANXIETY WITH FINAL TEST SCORES Variables Number Mean Standard Correlation Deviation State Anxiety 43 42.140 8.677 —.l657 Final Grade 43 83.140 4.502 Since an examination of the final course grades of the subjects at the ELC and the achievement scores made by them indicated that a high final grade did not necessarily mean high achievement also, in terms of points gained during the quarter,1 I correlated their state anxiety with their achievement scores to determine the relationship between anxiety and general success in the acquisition of English. As has been pointed out, the achievement scores were arrived at by subtracting the initial test scores achieved by subjects on first enrolling at the ELC with the final scores achieved by them at the end of the quarter. The difference between the two scores was then used to correlate with the state anxiety scores. The correlation 66 coefficient of -.O788 again indicated no significant relationship between the two variables (see Table 2). TABLE 2 PEARSON CORRELATION OF STATE ANXIETY WITH ACHIEVEMENT SCORES Variables Number Mean Standard Correlation Deviation State Anxiety 43 42.140 8.677 -.0788 Achievement 43 6.233 6.506 A look at the graphic representations of the correlation between the two variables in Figure 1, however, does suggest that more of the subjects who achieved 10 points or more (indicative of high achievement) during the quarter belong to the low and moderate anxiety group rather than the high anxiety group. Pearson product-moment correlation was performed to determine the relationship between state anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s A-State Scale and trait anxiety as measured by the A-Trait Scale. Table 3 presents the mean and standard deviation of the State anxiety scores and the mean and standard deviation of the trait anxiety scores. The correlation coefficient (r = .4042) is indicative of a positive correlation between the two variables, significant at the .05 level. To determine if there is a correspondence between students' self- assessment of their own anxiety states and teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states, I employed Pearson product—moment correlation to 67 .ucmEm>mH£u< :uHS Humwxc< wumam Ho COHumHmHHou comcmmm .H mpstm Humec< mumum cacao 99.35 o=.cc oaomo o=.om uc.nw oo.r: ua.mm goomn so.cw .n.om O.----.--'-.'.-'..---.----.'---‘--'-‘-O-..--'-‘O'O'."--‘---'O--'-Q--‘-"""'-"¢"--.'---§-‘V'O'-"¢O oo.eHo . H H a oo.oHo H H H H H H H H 1 1 . . H m N no a 090’. O o I H H H H , H H n H I H H H n I H o H H H o H H snow 0 H o 0 SH 0 o o S ca.~ M H a n is C H H o H o H H H o o H H H OH O O H o n N H 90.0 o H o o I o o a n. o o no.0 H H. H _ m ..--O---.----------------------------'---"-'-------"----"-.---OIOOOOFOOO----‘S-------"------'--'-f O H H 1 . 1 99.:H o H o H . oo.:H w H H H H H H H H H H H H H H ao.o~ . H H m oo.o~ H H H . H H H H H H H H no.o~ . H H . ac.o~ H H H H H H H H fl0-.-------------‘-'---'-."---'----------.---"---'-----'0--'-'--"O------'-'--'-"--'-'-'--"-"----H H H H H uc.~n . H H o oo.~m W M W m oao¢n o H n H S ac.cr H H H H 1 1 . . H H H H H H 2...... o H H o 99...: H H H H H a H m H H H u H H H H 3...... H H H H 3.5 .‘O'-.---"""‘---'.‘O'I‘"O-.'---.---OO----.0---.-'-'¢-'--‘----‘O'--‘-"-""-‘"O'O--l-.O--'.----. ooosk ca.Hs room» cu.0m no.mm cook: ao.H: geomn oooom aa.m~ nuamaAarqu 68 TABLE 3 PEARSON CORRELATION OF STATE ANXIETY WITH TRAIT ANXIETY Variables Number Mean Standard Correlation Deviation State Anxiety 43 42.140 8.677 .4042 Trait Anxiety 43 39.930 7.682 correlate the state anxiety scores as obtained from students' self- evaluation of their own anxiety states with the scores obtained from the teachers' evaluation of the subjects' anxiety states. The correla— tion coefficient of -.0687 showed no significant relationship between the two (see Table 4). However, graphic representations of the correla- tion between the two variables as shown in Figures 2 and 3 suggest that teachers have a tendency of rating students' anxiety state lower than the student rate themselves. TABLE 4 PEARSON CORRELATION OF STATE ANXIETY WITH TEACHERS' EVALUATION SCORES Variables Number Mean Standard Correlation Deviation State Anxiety 43 42.140 8.6777 -.0687 Teachers' Evalua- tion Scores 43 33.140 9.415 69 .GOHumaHm>m .mumnumcH :uHB mumec< mumum .mucmvaum Ho SOHumHmuuoo comummm .N mustm kumfixcfi cumum .mucmwSum oc.ai ac.c~ cc.:; 2:.a. :e.¢: :r.;: :o.ca r:.:x ac..n :z..x oo..n OOIIII’IIIIQIIII‘IIIIOIIIIQIIIIQIIIIOIIIIQII'IQIIIIOIIIIQUIIIQIIIIQllIIQCII|§III‘¢IIIIQIIIIOIIIIQIIIIQo c o H _ S a H H H H H H H H H H H H _ H H H aeoz 9 H H o c;ou H H H H H _ H H H H H H H H H H o:.eH o H H o c;.aH H H H H H H H c . H H H . H H H .H . . H . H . Queen 9 H .H c 9 :gocn H H c cc. H c H H-------------------------------1--------------i------u-------.-------.-.l----------.-----------------_ H H c c H H H . . . H H . oo.un + H H o c:owm H H o c c o H c _ H H. H . H H H c. a c o _ H H c H H secs: 9 . H H o asocc H H . H H H H H H H H H . H H H o H _ oo.=c o H H o oc.xa H H . H H H H o H Hnoiiioiluniazllillnliliiluuilillnllllliulllllllilluuuall-onloulioinulan-iniiioilluiluululiiiuoilullii_ H H H . H oc.¢m o H H o oooco H H . H H H H H H H H H H H H H H co.cs + H H . oe.c¢ H H H H H H H _ H H H H H H H H coomh o . H H o acowH H H _ H H H H H H _ H H H H H H oo.oa H _ _ . oc.oa cc.- ecoHH ocomr coca; os.nw zeoHp aeoHc emomm oc.cn ocamm uorienIeAg .Siaqoeel 70 For example, note that in Figure 2, the subject who has rated himself highest on the state anxiety scale (an average of 60.3) has beairated a mere 23 points on the teachers' evaluation scale. Another subject who has rated herself 59 points scored only 36 points on the teachers' evaluation scale. Conversely, two subjects who were rated high on the anxiety scale (55 and 52 points) by their teachers rated themselves only 34 and 28 points respectively on the A-State Scale. 25 L students' state anxiety scores 20 ' teachers' evaluation scores Frequency of Distribution 10-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71—80 State Anxiety Scores Figure 3. Frequency Distribution of State Anxiety and Teachers' Evaluation Scores. 71 Figure 3 represents the frequency distribution of the average of subjects' state anxiety scores and the teachers' evaluations. It shows that no subject has been rated by the teachers as belonging to the 61 to 70 (high anxiety) category, although three subjects have scores that fall within that range. Also even though no subject has rated himself as below 20 points (indicative of very low anxiety) in the A—State Scale, four of them have been evaluated by the teachers as belonging to that category. Note also that while most subjects' state anxiety scores fall within the 31-40 (low anxiety) and 41-50 (moderate anxiety) range, teachers' evaluation of subjects' state anxiety fall mainly within the 21-30 and 31-40 (low anxiety) range. The Pearson product-moment correlation of state anxiety with writing apprehension performed to determine the relationship of state anxiety and writing apprehension also showed no significant relation- ship between the two variables, as is indicated by the correlation coefficient of .1698 (see Table 5). TABLE 5 PEARSON CORRELATION OF STATE ANXIETY WITH WRITING APPREHENSION Variables Number Mean Standard Correlation Deviation State Anxiety 43 42.140 8.677 .1698 Writing Appre— hension 43 68.651 16.433 72 In order to determine any significant differences on the anxiety scores achieved by male and female as well as to determine if teachers evaluated the anxiety states of the males and females differently, I used the patch-pair t-test. Results, as they are shown in Table 6, indicated no significant differences on the state and trait anxiety scores, the writing apprehension scores, as well as the teachers' evaluation scores of the male and female subjects. TABLE 6 MATCH—PAIR T-TEST OF DIFFERENCES IN ANXIETY SCORES ACHIEVED BY MALES AND FEMALES Males Females Variables Mean SD Mean SD t p (df=4l) State Anxiety 41.15 7.943 44.69 10.273 —l.21 .23 Trait Anxiety 39.06 7.831 42.16 7.107 -1.19 .24 Teachers' Evaluation 32.87 9.276 33.83 10.152 - .30 .77 Writing Apprehen- sion 66.45 15.577 74.33 17.900 -l.4l .16 Summary This chapter presented the results of the statistical computation of the group data to determine the relationship between state anxiety and success in the acquisition of the English language, state anxiety and trait anxiety, state anxiety as reported by subjects themselves and 73 subjects' state anxiety as evaluated by their teachers, and state anxiety and writing apprehension. Pearson-product-moment correlation performed on these pairs of variables showed the following results: 1. There is no relationship between state anxiety and subjects' success in performance in the ESL classroom. 2. There is no relationship between state anxiety and general success in the acquisition of English. 3. There is a significant positive correlation between state anxiety as measured by Spielberger et al.'s A—State Scale and trait anxiety as measured by the A-Trait Scale. 4. There is no relationship between subjects' self-assessment of their anxiety states and their teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states. 5. There is no relationship between state anxiety and writing apprehension. NOTES 1The two subjects with the highest final grades (92 points) achieved only a 4-point gain during the quarter, and the subject with the highest gain in achievement scores (39 points) achieved a final grade of 81 points only. 74 CHAPTER IV RESULTS OF CASE STUDIES Introduction Six subjects, 5 males and 1 female,1 with ages ranging from 17 to 35 years, were selected, from the 43 D- and E-level students who par- ticipated in the study, for more in-depth interviews. I scheduled the interviews at weekly intervals for two-and-a-half months. Each inter- view lasted from one to one—and-a-half hours. The interviews were conducted in English, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. I took notes as the subjects responded to a series of questions. This chapter presents the data collected from the interviews in an attempt to pro— vide answers for the following questions: (1) What are some of the more important factors contributing to anxiety in the ESL classroom as they are perceived by the learners? (2) How do subjects perceive anxiety to affect their performance? (3) What strategies do they generally employ to control anxiety? (4) Where in a number of anxiety factors (e.g., worry over financial problems and relationship to teachers and room- mates) does the actual task of learning the English language stand? and (5) What are the problems common to ESL learners? In soliciting the answers to these questions, I gave the six sub- jects involved in the study a list of what has been described in the 75 76 literature on teaching English as a second language as common problems contributing to the anxiety of ESL learners (see Appendix B) and told them to rank the items in order of importance, in the context of their own experiences. In subsequent interviews, subjects provided more information on how these problems created anxiety in them, how they felt anxiety to affect their performance, and what they did to control their anxiety. Additional information was provided by what subjects had written in an essay entitled, "Things That Worry Me" and by the anxiety scores they achéfved on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory_and Daly and Miller's writing apprehension scale. Subject One Personal Data Ahmed, a twenty-three-year—old Business student from Turkey, had been in the United States for six months at the time the research began. He had graduated from the Istanbul Academy of Economics and Commercial Sciences with a B.A. degree in Business. Aside from his native language, Ahmed speaks fluent German, having lived in Hamburg, Germany, for a year. He had also travelled exten- sively in twelve different countries in the past six years. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he had first learned the English lan- guage at Belfren-Walden College in Essex, England. The college is one of the institutions especially established for teaching foreign students the English language. Ahmed had his first contact with Americans and the American culture 77 at Columbia University, New York, where he was enrolled in the English program for seven weeks and took a course in Introduction to the Ameri- can Culture. Other than that he had no previous contact with the American culture except for what he had learned from friends who had been in American colleges or universities. At the time of the research, Ahmed was enrolled at Michigan State University as a non-academic student. He had chosen to come to the United States for advanced education because of its technological advancement and because he believed the country to have some of the best business schools in the world. His motivation for learning English appeared to be instrumental rather than integrative, that is, he expressed no curiosity about the American culture nor did he wish to be like an American because he took pride in his own native culture. His main purpose in coming to the United States was to get a recognized degree from a reputable American University. This, he hoped, would help to improve his job opportunities as well as enable him to communi- cate with people from other countries during his travels. Factors Contributing to Anxiety The problems that contributed to Ahmed's anxiety appeared to be mainly related to his anxiety over his academic future and the need to adjust to a new country and a new environment. When giventlmalist of problems commonly encountered by ESL learners, he ranked the ten items which concerned him most in the following order of importance: (1) time limit; (2) future career; (3) financial problems; (4) success in acquiring English; (5) fear of losing old friends (he explained that by 78 this he meant he missed his old friends); (6) pressure from sponsors or sponsoring organizations; (7) political conditions in native country; (8) personal health; (9) relationship with teachers; and (10) social problems. Items 1, 2, 4, and 6 can be classified under Ahmed's general anxiety over his academic future. A business company had awarded him a study grant for three years--one year in which to acquire the English language and two years to complete the MBA program. At the time we had the first interview, Ahmed was anxiously seeking entrance into a prestigious American University from which he could get a degree recog— nized in his own native country. He had spent a great deal of time in writing to the different universities and in filling out application forms the first six weeks of the quarter. His application for entrance into the universities also required his taking the GMA Test as well as the TOFEL Test. At the time we met, Ahmed was scheduled to take the tests in a month's time. He felt that he had insufficient time to adequately prepare for the tests and was apprehensive that he would jeopardize his chances of being accepted if he did not achieve the high scores required for acceptance. Ahmed also expressed concern over possible difficulty in adapting to the American educational system. Because of his deficiency in English, he anticipated problems in competing with native speakers of English. He felt he did not know enough of the technical terms in his major field to handle the reading assignments. He was worried that because of his need to refer to the dictionary frequently, he would have problems completing his reading assignments. As for his concern over acquiring the English language successfully, 79 Ahmed felt the need to use the proper English in order to create the right impression. As a graduate student he felt frustrated and embarrassed at being confined to using simple and elementary English. He wanted to sound educated and mature, but the English taught at the ELC did not help him to communicate effectively in an ordinary communi- cative situation. He thought that the students had not been provided with enough practice in speaking "real" conversational English. As one of his teachers observed, Ahmed made the distinction between ELC English and "real" English. He was anxious that students should be given more opportunity to speak "real" English. Ahmed's anxiety over items 3, 5, 8, 9 and 10 can be seen as a part of his adjustment to a new country and to a new environment, although he perceived no special problems in adjusting to the American culture because of the extensive travelling he had done. Ahmed had come from a country where the family unit is very strong, and parents provide for the personal needs and education of their chil— dren even though they may be of college age. He and his friends agreed that it can be quite a traumatic experience to come from a high enclo- sure group into a society in which independence is valued and individ- uals must rely on their own resources. They found it disturbing to have to worry about providing for their own personal needs and finding the money for their education. For example, at the time of the research, Ahmed was also experiencing a great deal of anxiety because he was in the process of selecting and purchasing a car. Because he had diffi— culty in transferring money out of his country, he had to worry about getting a loan and financing the loan. Ahmed felt that the problems confronting him and his friends were often magnified because they had 80 no one to turn to for advice and because of what they perceived to be an impersonal attitude on the part of their American friends. Since they were unable to develop any meaningful relationships with friends of the new cultural group, they often had to turn to their own cultural group. When this happened, they experienced anxiety of another kind. They were worried that,because of less opportunity to practice speak- ing the language, they would lose whatever English they had already acquired. For example, toward the end of the quarter, Ahmed told me he had been with his Turkish friends a lot in the previous four weeks and had spoken only in his native language. As he put it, "It makes me very nervous to think that I may forget the English I have learned." At the beginning of the quarter, Ahmed experienced a great deal of anxiety in trying to adjust to living conditions in the dormitory. He had been required by the ELC to live in the dormitory so that he would have more opportunities to learn English through contacts with American roommates and American friends. He was placed in Bailey Hall-—a coed dorm which houses mainly freshmen and sophomores. Ahmed, who was in his twenties, felt out of place with a different age group. Ahmed had been accustomed to living in an apartment or a room of his own in his native country and in other countries he had been to; he therefore found it difficult to live with two others in the same room. He was bothered by the lack of privacy and the loud music blaring from the stereo of one of his roommates. This not only deprived him of much needed rest but prevented him from concentrating on his lessons. This same inconsiderate roommate often returned to the room long after Ahmed and the other roommate had gone to bed and would either turn on the light or fill the room with loud blasts of rock and roll music. He 81 also had a girlfriend who came to the room at her convenience. Although Ahmed had an American girlfriend at the time of the study, he was dis- turbed by this free association between the sexes and felt embarrassed to have a girl in his room. The tension generated by the situation was so high he decided to move out of the dorm into an apartment in Spartan Village. In the writing class, Ahmed was anxious to write well because he is a good writer and can express himself fluently in his own native lan- guage. In the new language, however, he lacked the control he has in his own language. He was frustrated by his inability to think of the proper English vocabulary to express what he wanted to say as well as his inability to use good English rhetoric to convey his thoughts. The time limit given for the writing of essays in class or in the examina- tion was a real source of anxiety to him. The 30-minute time limit did not give him sufficient time to think over the topic and to organize his thoughts. Rather it created such panic in him that he would put down whatever came into his mind. The time limit also did not permit him to deal with more complex and difficult topics. In the mid-term examination, for example, they were given the topic, "Best Things Are 1 Free.‘ He felt that 30 minutes was insufficient time for non-native students to deal with such an abstract topic. Anxiety Profile At the time of the study, especially during the first weeks of the quarter, Ahmed appeared to be experiencing high anxiety. This impres- sion was confirmed by Ahmed's perception of himself as a high—anxiety 82 person. His scores on the state anxiety scale, however, showed him a moderate-anxiety subject. As is shown in Table 7, his state anxiety scores were 45 on the second week of the quarter, 47 on the fourth week-—just two days before the mid-term examination, and 38 (indicative of low anxiety) on the eighth week. There is a noticeable drop in his anxiety level towards the end of the quarter. As Ahmed explained on the last two interviews, most of the problems he had encountered at the beginning of the quarter had already been solved. He had bought a car, and he had been accepted by the University of Texas to take the MBA preparatory course. Ahmed's trait anxiety score was 32 (indicative of low anxiety), but his writing apprehension score of 51 was indicative of moderate anxiety. In contrast, his writing teacher had assigned him a low anxiety score of only 28 points. TABLE 7 ANXIETY SCORES OF AHMED Variables Possible Scores Actual Scores State Anxiety 1 80 45 State Anxiety 2 8O 47 State Anxiety 3 80 38 Trait Anxiety 80 32 Writing Apprehension 120 51 Teachers' Evaluation 80 28 83 Effects of Anxiety Ahmed thought that anxiety had a debilitating effect on his per- formance. For example, for the first six weeks of the quarter, his preoccupation with the problem of applying for admissions into a pres- tigious university and his anxiety over his academic future prevented him from concentrating on the task of learning English at the ELC. In fact, he admitted, he was so absorbed in trying to solve his problems he skipped the class he was auditing for almost half the quarter. His absence led to additional anxiety over the effects of his anxiety on his performance. Also, his anxiety over finding comfortable living quarters and the means to finance his car took a great deal of his time and energy that could have been devoted to learning the English language. As the end of the quarter approached, Ahmed confessed that he "felt very nervous" because he had not achieved what he had hoped to achieve. Strategies for Handling Anxiety Ahmed's maxim is "Success is even sweeter when difficulties are overcome in the achieving process." In anxiety situations, therefore, he would set aside everything else and focus on the problem causing his anxiety. He would think the problem through thoroughly and explore every alternative until he arrived at a solution. He would not give up until he had found the solution to his problem and reduced his anxiety over the situation. He felt that by focusing his attention on the problem, he was usually able to channel his energy towards the 84 solution of his problem and in this way helped to reduce his anxiety. At other times he was able to work off his tension by participating in sports. Summary Ahmed appeared to be possessed with a tremendous drive to succeed in the career he has chosen. His primary concern was to prepare him- self adequately for his future career by getting a degree from a pres- tigious university. His preoccupation with seeking entrance to the various universities, therefore, contributed much to his anxiety. Other factors that caused his anxiety were problems relating to his adjustment to living conditions in the dormitory and to the American system of education. His worry over the debilitating effects of his anxiety on his acquisition of the English language was an additional source of anxiety. However, Ahmed felt that his perseverance in seeking solutions to his problems did much to reduce his anxiety. Subject Two Personal Data Twenty-year-old Juan is a Puerto Rican who was born in South Bronx of New York City and had his first exposure to the English language in the kindergarten that he attended as a child. At the age of five, how- ever, his parents moved back to Puerto Rico. He completed elementary and high school in Puerto Rico and worked for a year before coming to 85 the United States. At the time of the research, Juan was enrolled as a sophomore at Michigan State University, majoring in Psychology. Besides the English he had learned in the kindergarten in New York, Juan had learned English as a second language in the elementary and high schools he attended in Puerto Rico. There, English was taught as one of the subjects in school. Instruction in the English class was bilingual, with the teachers using both English and Spanish for instruction. After his arrival in the United States, he tried to learn more English by par— ticipating in group activities, talking to native speakers, by reading periodicals, novels, and newspapers, and by watching movies. Juan had come to the United States for the purpose of getting a B.S. degree in Psychology and perhaps to enter medical school later. He also wished to improve his English and to advance educationally for professional reasons. Factors Contributing to Anxiety Juan listed the ten problems that were responsible for his anxiety in the following order of importance: (1) financial problems; (2) food; (3) fear of losing old friends; (4) future career; (5) success in acquiring English; (6) identifying with new cultural group; (7) adjust- ment to new culture; (8) relationship with roommates; (9) relationship with friends; and (10) desire to make new friendships. Financially, Juan was very worried about getting the tuition for the following quarter. He could not expect any help from his widowed mother. He had applied for a Federal grant for minority groups, but shortly before the end of the winter quarter, he received a letter 86 from the Office of Financial Aid, requesting him to provide more infor- mation on the financial status of his family before they could process his application. As he wrote in his essay, "Things That Worry Me" at the end of the quarter, "This really worries me because it will take them from four to six weeks to determine my eligibility. By that time I will need the money to pay my fees for room and food. I hope I don't have any problems paying my tuition like last term. This really upsets me because I want to spend my vacation with no worries in my head." Juan was also concerned how his financial problems would affect his education--whether he would have the means to complete his program here. He felt perplexed over the uncertainty of his future. Juan's anxiety over items 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 showed symptoms of ”culture shock." At the time of the study he had been in the coun- try for only four weeks; hence the problem of food and the living con- ditions were still of major concern for him. Juan said he missed the food he had been accustomed to in his native country--food like rice and beans. Because he had not as yet learned to enjoy American food, he had lost some weight. His friends from the same country who were affected more seriously by this problem had stomach upsets and were often ill. Juan had not been in the country long enough to overcome the initial feelings of homesickness and showed great eagerness in remi- niscing on life in his homeland. He keenly missed his old friends, especially a girlfriend at home, and spent a great deal of his time-- time he thought should have been devoted to his lessons and to learning English—-in nostalgic recollections of the past and in writing to his friends. 0n weekends, especially, his loneliness and homesickness were 87 acute because he missed the entertainment and the social activities he had been accustomed to. Juan felt a strong need to maintain his ties with friends at home and experienced a great deal of anxiety that time and distance would sever such ties. This anxiety had increased rather than decreased with the passage of time. On special days like Valentine's Day, Juan was so affected by this problem he was unable to concentrate on his lessons. He wished he could go home for vacation during the spring break but was frustrated by the lack of funds to do so. Juan attributed his loneliness and homesickness to his inability to identify with the new cultural group because their taste for music, entertainment, and their customs of courtship and values differed. He said he could not enjoy the parties of the Americans because he could not enjoy the rock and roll music which to him was more noise than music. Neither could he enjoy dancing with American girls. He could not derive the same pleasure as he did dancing with Puerto Rican girls. As he put it, "Puerto Rican girls have rhythm in their souls when they are dancing.” In the matter of music and entertainment, Juan felt he could bet- ter identify with the blacks and Chicanos because of their common Afri- can and Latin backgrounds. The Puerto Ricans, according to him, can trace their ancestory to both Spaniards and Africans. Juan believed that his difficulty in identifying with his new American friends was caused by variation in values of friendship and material things. In his country, friends and family members are very close to each other. They enjoy a great deal of communal social activities. Friends spend a great deal of time talking to each other 88 and in sharing creative ideas. They enjoy meeting friends and having friends. To demonstrate this, Juan told of an incident which occurred shortly after his arrival in the United States. He had met a Puerto Rican and given his new friend his phone number. Before long Juan was pleasantly surprised to receive calls from other Puerto Ricans who had gotten his phone number from his new friend. They were all anxious to admit him into their circle of friendship. In the new culture, however, life is programmed in such a way that friends have little time for each other. Friendship between the sexes, especially, appeared superficial and much too free to Juan, lacking in depth and constancy. Because of a perceived impersonal attitude on the part of his American friends, he felt he could not share any of his problems with them. He would rather write to his friends at home about his problems. Juan also did not feel the need nor the desire to assimilate the new culture, because he could not be himself when he was with the new cultural group. He wanted to maintain his native culture because he could better perceive himself in the context of the Spanish culture. He took pride in the Spanish language and wanted the new cultural group to accept him as he was. He did not think his attitude would undergo any change in the future. In fact he felt that the contrast between his own native culture and the new culture had helped him to better appreciate his own culture. He did indicate, however, that he wished to associate with the Americans for the purpose of learning more English. He also wanted to be accepted by them. He reported a time when he tried to quietly observe American behavior so as to avoid behavior that would give them offense. 89 Juan's concern over relationship with his roommates was a part of his problem of adjusting to life in the dormitory. Although he was pre- pared to live with people of other cultures and tried to look positively at the situation, he was annoyed by the noise and loud music which pre- vented him from concentrating on his lessons. Often times he had to resort to studying in the cafeteria or the library. To make the situa- tion more unbearable, his roommate would often start working on his assignments at twelve when Juan was already in bed. He would either turn on the radio while studying his lessons or bring his friends into the room. The disturbance robbed Juan of his much needed sleep; con- sequently, he felt irritable and sleepy in class the next day. Like most of the other foreign students, Juan was very concerned over his future career. At the time of the study, he had not as yet decided on the field he wanted to specialize in--either social psychol- ogy or clinical psychology. He was concerned over future job oppor- tunities, having been told that psychology graduates are not in demand. Moreover, he worried over the lack of prestige accorded to psychologists, especially in his own native country. Juan had ranked success in acquiring the English language as fifth in the order of importance. He had decided to come to the United States to learn more English because he thought English is a universal lan- guage. Since some of the best books in the area of science are written in English, he felt that a knowledge of English would make accessible to him the vast stores of scientific knowledge. It would also enable him to communicate with native speakers of English. He had hopes of becoming bilingual so that he could either work in his native country or in a Latin community in the United States. He was also anxious to acquire 90 the language because he believed that in a field like psychology he needed to be proficient in the language in order to communicate effec- tively with his clients. Socially, Juan felt that his deficiency in English was a source of anxiety because it undermined his confidence and security, especially in a communicative situation. He had problems in communicating his real feelings in English, particularly in a group. He could not find the proper vocabulary or the idiom to effectively communicate what he wanted to say. He was especially concerned with his pronunciation of English words, because he felt the need to create a correct image, especially in formal conversation. He felt that the material taught him in the ELC classroom did not develop the kind of communicative competence he needed to get around comfortably in a group outside of the classroom. His deficiency in English also did not permit him to understand native speakers. Often times when he had to ask native speakers to repeat statements, signs of their impatience bothered him. Academically, Juan felt that his deficiency in English was a handi- cap. In his sociology class, for example, his anxiety over the essay— type questions in the examination was so great he decided to drop the class. As for writing, although he experienced no anxiety in writing in his own native language because he is a good writer, in the ELC writing class he experienced the frustration of being unable to use the sophis- ticated syntax he was able to in Spanish. In the new language he had to use the most elementary and simple styles because of his limited English vocabulary and idioms. He was also limited to selecting only 91 topics he could handle. This he feared would reflect on his intelli- gence. In the last interview, just one week before the finals, Juan expressed concern over the mistakes in syntax and style that he was still making in writing. He felt that he had learned insufficient English and worried about the final test scores. To him they were "passports to academic programs." Anxiety Profile Except for his acute homesickness, Juan did not impress me as a high anxiety subject. He perceived himself as a moderately anxious person. On the state anxiety scale, however, his scores of 30, 32, and 36 on the second, fourth, and eighth week respectively, showed him a low-anxiety subject (see Table 8). His trait anxiety score of 33 also indicated low anxiety. His writing apprehension score was 62 (indica- tive of moderate anxiety), but on the teacher's evaluation scale he scored a low of 25 points. This discrepancy could be attributed to one of Juan's strategies for controlling his anxiety. Juan said when anxious, he usually did not betray his emotions in class. He would try to appear ”cool" because he did not want his teachers to consider him immature. Effects of Anxiety Juan believed anxiety to have a debilitating effect on his per- formance. When he was anxious he felt sensitive and aggressive and 92 TABLE 8 ANXIETY SCORES OF JUAN Variables Possible Scores Actual Scores State Anxiety 1 8O 30 State Anxiety 2 8O 32 State Anxiety 3 8O 36 Trait Anxiety 80 33 Writing Apprehension 120 62 Teacher's Evaluation 80 25 threatened to blow his top at whoever came by at the moment. He would be moody, depressed, and irritable, but in class, he usually tried not to reveal his emotions, because he did not want to appear immature to his teachers. When anxious, Juan was unable to concentrate on his lessons. He was distracted by his problems and had to solve them before he could focus on what he was doing. Strategies for Handling Anxiety In response to the question on how he usually handled his anxiety, Juan said that to control the debilitating effects of anxiety, he tried not to make decisions while under stress. He also tried to look "cool." He found that the need to keep a calm exterior often helped to calm him inwardly. Also to prevent others from perceiving his anxiety 93 and to prevent himself from offending others by his moody and depressed state, he tried to keep out of other's way. Meanwhile he would try to work out his emotions by involving himself in different kinds of activi- ties, for example, jogging, writing poems or letters or making journal entries, and, depending on the level of his anxiety, he at times would confide in a friend or friends. Usually he did not rely on others to help him solve his problems. He generally tried to prevent putting himself in an anxiety situation by planning ahead, for example, not doing any last minute cramming for an examination. He thought that being well-prepared for a situation helped because anxiety is due to fear. He found that an optimistic outlook usually helped to allay his fears. Summary Juan impressed me as a serious, but warm and fun-loving young man with strong affiliation needs. He participated enthusiastically in the study and was very frank in disclosing his personal problems after we became better acquainted. Most of the problems contributing to Juan's anxiety appear to be related to his strong affiliation need. His dis- orientation in the new country can be attributed to his having come from a high enclosure group into a society which values independence and self-reliance and to his having been in the country for only four weeks at the time the research began. I believe that, in his case, the magnitude of the problems will decrease with time when memories of the homeland become less fresh and he has more opportunities to form new friendShips within the new cultural group. Also, in the strategies 94 that he employs for controlling his anxiety, Juan shows that he has found some healthy outlets for his anxiety. Subject Three Personal Data Farida, age thirty-five, had come to the United States from Iran in order to work for a Ph.D. degree in Geography at Michigan State University. Her previous exposure to the English language included ten years of learning English as a second language in high schools of her native country and three months of informal study in London. She holds an M.A. degree in Geography from the University of Teheran. Prior to her arrival in the United States, she had worked as an assis— tant professor in the same university. Through her association with American friends in the community school in Teheran where she had worked for a year and the American friends she met at Teheran University, Farida had her first contacts with Americans and the American culture. She, therefore, thought that she would not have much difficulty in adjusting to the new culture. At the time of the study, Farida had been in the country for only five months. She had not as yet been admitted into the formal academic program. 95 Factors Contributing to Anxiety While the other subjects had ranked the ten items that applied to them in the order of importance, in ranking the factors, Farida had classified the related items into categories because she believed that the related items held equal weight for her. In category 1, she had listed personal health. health of family members, financial problems, living conditions, and political conditions in her native country; category 2, schoolwork, classwork at the ELC, success in acquiring English, meeting the expectations of parents, time limit, and future career; category 3, adjustment to new culture, food, social problems, losing identity with native culture; category 4, relationship with teachers and relationship with friends. At the time of the study, Farida's country was having a political revolution. In addition to her worry over the safety of family members in her country, Farida was concerned about her fast depleting financial resources. She had a grant from her government to work on her Ph.D. program, but because of the turmoil in Iran, the flow of money from her country was cut off. Like Ahmed, she could not transfer her savings out of her native country at that time. She was worried as to where her tuition for the next quarter would come from and how she would pro— vide for her family. Under such circumstances, Farida was duly con- cerned that she and her family members should keep healthy. She had undergone major surgery before coming to the U.S. and had not yet fully recovered her physical strength. She felt that unless she and her family kept healthy, she would not be able to achieve what she had come to this country for. 96 As has been pointed out, Farida wished to work for a doctorate degree in Population Geography. At the time of the study, she had already been in the country for five months but had not yet been admitted into the formal program because of her deficiency in English. She had to achieve an acceptable grade at the ELC before she could be admitted into any formal academic program. Meanwhile she could only audit some courses in her department. It appeared that much of the stress that Farida experienced over her schoolwork arose from a conflict between the desire to do well at school and what she felt was her obligation to her family. She felt that she could not handle her duties at home because she had too much work at school. During the quarter of the research she was taking courses in grammar, lab, reading and writing at the ELC and auditing a seminar course in her department at the same time. She thought that the assignments from the different classes consumed too much of her energy needed for her duties at home. Her teenage son was going through the traumatic experience of adjusting to a new language and a new educa- tional system. He needed a great deal of her attention and her help with his schoolwork. Her husband was not going to school so she felt obligated to spend time with him. In view of all these responsibilities, Farida thought that students at the ELC had been given too many assign- ments. She felt that they should be given more independent work so that they would not have to work under the pressure of having datelines to meet. As for her work in her department, Farida felt that, although she had no problem with the technical words because the geography texts she used in her native country were in English, she worried that she 97 would not be able to compete with native Speakers in reading speed; she would have to spend more time on her reading assignments. She also anticipated problems with computing the data collected for her research. She had not had any courses in statistics. She had some theoretical knowledge, but no practical experience in computing sta- tistical summaries of data. Farida's anxiety over her success in acquiring the English lan- guage appeared to be related to the time limit she had been given as well as the uncertainty of her future. She had been given a grant by her government for three years to work for her degree here. As has been mentioned, her country was undergoing a political as well as cul- tural revolution during the quarter of the research. She was worried about the security of her future job with the new government. Because of the cultural revolution she was afraid that it would be less open to foreign culture and foreign influence. Prior to the revolution, Eng- lish was considered a prestigious language in her native country, but she was uncertain that the situation would be the same by the time she was ready to return home. According to Farida, she did not experience as much anxiety in her adjustment to the new culture as anxiety over the political conditions in her country and the health of her family. The only difficulty she had was in understanding informal speech. She felt that the aca- demic English she had acquired in the ELC classes was insufficient for her to converse comfortably in an ordinary situation, for example, when she was shopping. Other than that, because of her busy school program and because of her duties at home, she had few opportunities for social contacts with members of the new language community; hence she did not 98 experience too much of the stress associated with cross-cultural con- tacts. Farida attributed her writing apprehension to her difficulty with English grammar. She thought she experienced less apprehension in writing than in speaking. In writing she could focus better and had more opportunity for editing her work. She also had more confidence in writing because she is a good writer in her own native language. Anxiety Profile In general, Farida's anxiety as measured by the anxiety scales correlated quite well with her self-perception of her own anxiety state. She perceived herself as a low—anxiety person because she is a flexible person. Even in anxiety situations she felt she could remain calm and cool. At the time of the research, she said her state anxiety was high because of the political situation in her country. On the last interview, however, Farida indicated that her anxiety had lowered con- siderably because the political crisis was over. This fluctuation of her state anxiety level was demonstrated in the scores she achieved on the state anxiety scale. As is shown in Table 8, on the second week of the quarter her state anxiety score was 47 points; on the fourth week her state anxiety score had dropped to 28, and on the eighth week it was a low 24. Her trait anxiety score of 34 also showed her a low- anxiety person. Her writing apprehension score of 42, however, was more indicative of moderate anxiety than of low anxiety. Her teacher also perceived her as a low-anxiety person as is indicated by the score of 35 she assigned Farida on the teachers' evaluation scale. 99 TABLE 9 ANXIETY SCORES OF FARIDA Variables Possible Scores Actual Scores State Anxiety 1 8O 47 State Anxiety 2 80 28 State Anxiety 3 8O 24 Trait Anxiety 80 34 Writing Apprehension 120 42 Teacher's Evaluation 80 35 Effects of Anxiety Farida believed anxiety to have a debilitating effect on her per- formance. Although she experienced less anxiety in writing than in speaking, she thought that anxiety had a greater effect on her writing. She said her mind would be so distracted by her problems she could not focus on what she was writing. She was often surprised at the simplest grammatical errors she made in her writing when under stress. Strategies for Handling Anxiety In anxiety situations Farida would tell herself she must keep her "cool." This would usually calm her down and enable her to look objec- tively at the problem causing her anxiety. She would then try to explorethe'various alternatives in an attempt to select the best lOO course of action for the solution of her problem. Summary Although a low—anxiety person by nature, Farida'a state anxiety was raised by a political revolution in her country at the time of the study. This precipitated such problems as concern over the safety of family members in her native country, her fast depleting financial resources, and the security of her future job. The pressure of her home responsibilities and school assignments added to her anxiety. Farida felt that anxiety had a debilitating effect on her per- formance in the ESL class, especially in her writing. However, she felt that her flexible attitude and her ability to maintain a calm appearance in anxiety situations helped her to handle her anxiety quite effectively. Subject Four Personal Data Ikusan is a twenty-two-year-old senior law student from Japan. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he had learned English as a second language in junior high in his country. His main purpose in coming to the United States was to improve his knowledge of English language in which he expressed a personal interest. He also believed that a knowledge of English would facilitate his finding a good job in 101 Japan, for Japanese firms attach a great deal of importance to the ability to speak and write in English. Factors Contributing to Anxiety The following was the order in which Ikusan listed the ten prob- lems that contributed most to his anxiety: (1) food; (2) frustration with methods of instruction; (3) classwork at the ELC, (4) success in acquiring English; (5) future career; (6) living conditions; (7) school- work; (8) personal health; (9) health of family members, and (l) finan- cial problems. Ikusan said he was more bothered by the poor food he had in the dormitory than by American food. When he first arrived at MSU he was emotionally and physically upset over the food. He experienced loss of appetite, had stomach upsets, and his general health was so affected he could not concentrate on his lessons. At the time of the study, Ikusan had already been in the country for eight months. He appeared to have been more adjusted to American food. Also, his anticipated return to his country at the end of the quarter had helped to reduce his anxiety concerning this problem. Ikusan's main anxiety appeared to spring from his concern with his not having achieved what he had come to the country to achieve--to acquire the English language. As he ruefully admitted on the last interview, "I have achieved only eighty percent of my goal of learning English." He experienced high anxiety over his classwork at the ELC as well as his schoolwork in the university, because he felt he was not getting much out of the classes he was taking. He was not satisfied 102 with his speed of acquisition at the ELC. In this respect, I believe that Ikusan had just cause for concern. He was the least fluent of the six case study subjects and showed difficulty in comprehending and answering some of the questions put to him. Consequently, the data collected on him were less than that of the other subjects. Ikusan was frustrated with the classes he was taking at the ELC because he was anxious to acquire a working vocabulary, but the mate- rials taught wenamainly a preparation for academic work in the univer- sity. He felt that this kind of vocabulary did not permit him to com— municate effectively in real life situations. Ikusan had been assigned to taking writing at the ELC. However, he saw no need for writing in English on his return home except to write to American friends. He would like to have developed his ability in speaking instead. He expressed anxiety in speaking to native speakers of English because of his problem with listening comprehension and speaking. He was afraid of giving the wrong response because of his poor listening comprehension. He was also concerned that he had not used the proper words to express his feelings. He did admit, how- ever, that his stay in the United States had helped him to be better acquainted with the American culture (his only previous contact with the American culture was made when he toured the United States at the age of sixteen). This, he felt, had helped him to better understand American speakers. Ikusan was frustrated with the writing class because he felt that it was more a grammar class than a writing class. He confessed that he had made no progress in the course (his perception of his lack of pro~ gress seems to correspond with his achievement scores. A comparison 103 of his final test score of 85 with his initial test score of 85 shows no gain in points during the quarter). In the reading class, students were asked to practice dialogues with each other, but he felt that they should have conversational practice with native speakers of English rather than with their non-native classmates. Ikusan was also required by the ELC to take the course American Thought and Language in order to acquaint him with the American culture. He considered this a waste of time and money since he did not intend to stay permanently in the country. The class was boring to him. Neither did it help him to improve his English. He thought he had acquired more English in informal settings, for example, watching the T.V., movies, and reading the newspapers as well as talking to his American roommates. He had no motivation for doing the assignment for this par- ticular class since he would not be required to sit for the exam, nor would he receive any credits for the course. As the date for his return to his country drew nearer, Ikusan worried about his future career. Although he was a law student, he had not as yet decided what he actually wanted to do in the future nor was he sure that he would be able to use English in his future work. He was all the more concerned that he had not reached a decision regarding his future career because he was already twenty-two years old. As for trying to adjust to living conditions in the dormitory, Ikusan found it difficult to live together with younger and more aggres- sive American students. Often he was bothered by the noise they created and could not concentrate on his lessons. Ikusan attributed his writing apprehension to his dislike of writing even in his native language. As has been pointed out, he saw no 104 value in learning to write in English. He also had a problem with spelling and grammar and had difficulty in expressing his thoughts in English. Anxiety Profile Ikusan correctly perceived himself as a moderate-anxiety person. On the state anxiety scale he achieved scores of 42, 40 and 34 on the first, second, and third administration of the scale (see Table 10). There was a noticeable drop in his state anxiety on the eighth week, for he was planning to return home at the end of the quarter and much of the anxiety associated with the problems he had encountered in this country would have been resolved. TABLE 10 ANXIETY SCORES OF IKUSAN Variables Possible Scores Actual Scores State Anxiety 1 80 42 State Anxiety 2 80 40 State Anxiety 3 80 34 Trait Anxiety 80 32 Writing Apprehension 120 82 Teacher's Evaluation 80 28 105 Ikusan's score of 32 points on the trait anxiety scale indicated low trait anxiety, but his score of 82 points on the writing apprehen- sion scale was indicative of the high anxiety he was experiencing in writing. Considering his frank admission that he has a dislike for writing even in his native language, this was not surprising. I believe the situation was aggravated by his inability to see any value in learn- ing to write in English. However, he has a low anxiety score of only 28 points on the teacher's evaluation scale. Perhaps his teacher's comments would provide the clue to the discrepancy between the subject's self—reported writing apprehension and his teacher's perception of his anxiety state. As his teacher said, "I have a hard time figuring him out. He's nice and does his work, but seems so dreamy and faraway." Effects of Anxiety Ikusan did not think that anxiety had much effect on his perfor- mance. As he put it, "It affects only a little." He felt that his optimistic outlook on life had helped him to control much of his anxiety. He experienced high anxiety only when he did not have enough to keep his mind occupied. Strategies for Handling Anxiety Ikusan tried to control his anxiety by keeping himself busy. He also tried to look at the problem objectively. Much of the time, how— ever, his anxiety was alleviated by his comparatively short stay in the country and by the fact that he was a non-academic student here. For 106 example, when the noise in the dormitory bothered Ikusan and prevented him from concentrating on his lessons, he did not waste energy worrying about the problem. He simply gave up studying because he did not have to take any exams in the course he was auditing. Neither was he con- cerned about the final test scores he would achieve at the ELC because he did not need them to enter any formal academic program. Summary Ikusan's main anxiety appeared to come from his perception of his lack of progress in acquiring the English language, a perception that seemed to have been confirmed by his very poor achievement score and his difficulty with listening comprehension. For this reason, he expressed dissatisfaction and frustration with classes at the ELC and the course American Thought and Language that he was required to take. Although his state anxiety scores showed him a moderate-anxiety sub- ject, his writing apprehension score was higher than that of any of the other subjects because he had an inherent dislike for writing even in his own native language and because he did not see any value in learning to write in English. Other than these problems, much of Ikusan's anxiety over other problems like food and adjustment to living conditions in the dormitory was minimized by his anticipated return to his native country at the end of the quarter. 107 Subject Five Personal Data Hassan, a former governor of Mauritania, came to the ELC with a rich background. He had sixteen years of working experience behind him-—eleven years as a regional chief, two years as an agriculture researcher, and five years as governor of Mauritania. He holds a B.A. degree in Engineering from France and was sponsored by AID (Agency for International Development) for graduate work in Agricultural Economics at MSU. Although Hassan knows Arabic and French besides four African dia- lects, he had no previous exposure to the English language. The only English he knew was what he had acquired after his arrival in the United States four months prior to the time the research was begun. He wished to learn the English language so he could get into academic work at MSU. He also thought that a knowledge of English would help him in his contacts with English speaking people in his future work. Despite his short exposure to the English language, Hassan was able to speak fluent English and express himself clearly. In fact his progress at the ELC was remarkable--he had the second highest achievement score of all the D- and E-level subjects involved in this study. His final score showed a 14 point gain from his initial score at the ELC. His teachers described him as an "ideal student, matured and serious. They thought ' and "unbelieveable." his improvement was "very marked," "remarkable,' They attributed his success to a positive attitude and a scholarly disci- pline that enabled him to do his assignments "faithfully, punctually," 108 and with "great care and precision.” They also noted that he did a great deal of extra work in an attempt to learn more English. Factors Contributing to Anxiety The ten factors that Hassan listed as contributing to his anxiety were: (1) health of family members; (2) political conditions in native country; (3) frustrations with methods of instruction; (4) success in acquiring English; (5) meeting expectations of parents; (6) relation- ship with friends; (7) desire to make new friendships; (8) living con- ditions; (9) food; and (10) financial problems. At the time of the first interview I was under the impression that because of his constant expression of fear over their safety and well- being that Hassan was experiencing high anxiety over his family. He had to come to the United States alone, leaving his wife and three children in Mauritania because of the children's education. His chil- dren were attending French schools, and it would not be feasible for them to transfer to a new school which entailed learning a new language in the middle of the year. Hassan was highly concerned that his family was living in the city with no relatives close by. They had enjoyed many privileges and mate- rial comforts while he was a governor. He was worried that they would not be able to fend for themselves without him and the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed. At the time of the first interview, Hassan had not heard from his family for some time. Because his wife is not one who would disclose her problems easily, be imagined that he was kept in the dark about the trouble they were having at home. 109 Having been the governor of his country, Hassan was also worried about the political future of Mauritania. He was concerned about the changes that could take place in the country while he was away. Hassan's frustrations with the methods of instruction can be traced to his difficulty in adjusting to a new educational system. In the writing class, for example, Hassan experienced real anxiety because of the time limit imposed on students when they wrote in class. They were generally given 30 minutes to write an essay. This, Hassan felt, was insufficient time for the foreign students. In his case it was a definite problem. Having been educated in Arabic and French, Hassan could not think directly in English--he did not have enough control in the new language for him to do that. In the writing class he had to translate from Arabic to French and from French to English before he could put his thoughts on paper. With the time limit of 30 minutes, he was usually unable to complete his essays. Moreover, because of his rich background and experiences, he felt he had too many concepts and ideas; it took him more time to sort out and organize his ideas. Hassan felt that in the writing class teachers should place more emphasis on concepts and help students develop depth in thought rather than speed in writing. He also thought that students should be given more time to expand their English vocabulary by means of independent reading and research. They would derive more pleasure from writing if they were given the opportunity to get the vocabulary needed. As it was, he had problems using the appropriate vocabulary. He had insuf- ficient time to deterime if the vocabulary he had used would fit in the context of each essay, because he had to worry about grammar, syntax and vocabulary at the same time when he was writing. He often confused 110 English with French vocabulary, especially those that were similar in spelling and pronunciation. Hassan preferred the French approach to instruction in writing. There is more emphasis on rhetoric and sophisticated use of the lan- guage. The use of rhyme and embedded structures are encouraged, and students are told to think of an essay topic in depth and to develop it thoroughly. Competency, coherence and fluency are evaluated in terms of concepts and rhetorics. Students are therefore given ample time to think over a topic before they are required to write. In his writing class, however, Hassan was bothered by the teacher's concern with spontaneity and speed rather than concept and rhetoric. He felt that students were encouraged to deal with a topic only superficially. They were also not given sufficient time to think through a topic thoroughly. Hassan's anxiety over his success in acquiring the English lang- guage came from his perceived difficulty in internalizing English words. "I can't memorize English words," he said. He also had a problem with vocabulary and syntax because of a variation in rules regarding these in different languages. In this respect, he felt that knowing more languages than one had hindered rather than facilitated him in the process of acquiring the English language. He knew that the successful acquisition of English was necessary for him to be successful in his academic work. In the lectures he attended, he had a problem with listening comprehension because he did not have a knowledge of the technical vocabulary in his field, although he knew the technical terms in French. He was concerned that the ELC did not provide for the development of technical vocabulary in various fields. lll Socially, Hassan said he was concerned that his deficiency in English did not permit him to talk comfortably with native speakers of English when he first arrived in the country. At the time of the interview, however, he felt that time had provided the adjustment. He could comprehend the ordinary conversation much better after having been in the United States for a few months. Hassan said that his age, his educational and family background had helped to reduce his anxiety concerning adjustment to the new cul- ture. He liked the friendliness of the Americans as well as their respect for privacy. Unlike the other case study subjects, he was happy with their impersonal ways. This attitude he attributed to his maturity (he was thirty-two at the time of the research) and his years of experience. He felt less need of dependence on others for help or for friendship. His educational background, his social status, and his family background had also provided him with the self-confidence needed in cross—cultural contacts. In the years he spent in France and in his position as governor he had had contacts with people of different races and different dialects. With his maturity and self-confidence he was, therefore, able to accept the fact that he would have to take the initia- tive in making friends with the Americans rather than expect them to seek his friendship. Hassan also thought that his background had helped him to adjust to the problem of food and living conditions in the dormitory. Although he had a problem with the food when he first arrived, he did not consider it as a problem of primary importance when he remembered that his goal in coming to the country was to acquire a degree, not to taste the food. Also, the fact that he was living in Owen Hall which houses graduate 112 students helped. He had less problem with noise and other disturbances encountered by the younger case study subjects. Anxiety Profile Hassan described himself as a moderate-anxiety subject. His state anxiety scores of 44 on the second week, 35 on the fourth week, and 48 on the eighth week (see Table 11) were consistent with his assessment of his own anxiety state during the interview. His trait anxiety score was 30 and his writing apprehension score was 57. On the teacher's evalua- tion scale his anxiety was low at 37. TABLE 11 ANXIETY SCORES OF HASSAN Variables Possible Scores Acutal Scores State Anxiety 1 8O 44 State Anxiety 2 8O 35 State Anxiety 3 8O 48 Trait Anxiety 80 30 Writing Apprehension 120 57 Teacher's Evaluation 80 37 Hassan thought that it took a lot to raise his anxiety level. When the research was first begun, his anxiety was very high because of his anxiety over his family. On the fourth week, however, his anxiety 113 level dropped after he had heard from his family and had finalized plans for them to join him at the end of the year. Effects of Anxiety Hassan thought that anxiety facilitated his performance in some situations but debilitated in other instances. In an examination sit- uation, for example, or when he faced competition in a group, his anxiety over doing a good job provided the motivation for him to think more effectively. In the learning of English, however, he felt dis— tracted by his anxiety over his family and the political conditions in his country the first few weeks of the quarter, but after the problems were resolved, he was able to make the progress he did. Strategies for Handling Anxiety Hassan said that when he was under stress he liked to be left alone to think his problems through and to work out a solution to his problem. When he was with a group or was in class, however, he gave no indication of his anxiety. He was usually composed and tried to look at the problems from different perspectives in an effort to work things out. When no solution was found, he usually conceded to the circum- stances and took a stoical attitude. This often helped to reduce his anxiety. 114 Summary Hassan stood out among the case study subjects because of his greater maturity and rich background and because of the remarkable pro- gress he had made in the acquisition of the English language although he had had no previous exposure to the language prior to his arrival in the United States. Two problems contributed most to Hassan's anxiety: the well-being of the family he had left behind in his native country and his inability to think directly in English in the writing class. Like Farida he was also concerned abouttflmepolitical conditions of his country, having been actively involved in its administration as governor. Hassan's mental discipline and his composed attitude in anxiety situations, however, did much to help him control his anxiety and to seek the solution to his problems. Subject Six Personal Data The youngest of the case study subjects was seventeen-year-old Santo from Venezuela, South America, young, vibrant and possessed with a tremendous drive to succeed. He was the most articulate of the sub- jects and spoke fluent English. In his response to the interview questions, he was both expressive and original. His teachers described him as a "very good language learner" with a "fine mind." Santo was a high school graduate who had come to the United States for two quarters with the specific purpose of acquiring the English language and developing independence and self-confidence. He had 115 learned English as a subject in the high school classes of his native country. There, instruction was bilingual, with teachers using both English and Spanish for instruction in the English classes. After his arrival in the United States, besides the English he acquired at the ELC, he tried to learn more of the language by talking to American friends, by listening to the radio, by watching T.V. programs, and by reading newspapers. He said that seventy-five percent of his Eng- lish had been acquired outside of the ESL classroom and thought that talking to American friends had helped most. Santo wanted to learn the English language for enrichment as well as instrumental purposes. He said he was very interested in the lan- guage, and in learning it, he was fulfilling a personal goal. He also thought that a knowledge of English would facilitate his future aca- demic program. He planned to take medicine in a local university on his return to Venezuela at the end of the quarter. Since many of the medical and reference books are in English, he felt that a knowledge of English would help make available to him research in his field. More- over, he thought the ability to speak another language would provide him with the self-confidence he needed in his future career. Factors Contributing to Anxiety Santo listed the ten factors that contributed most to his anxiety as (l) frustration with methods of instruction; (2) success in acquiring English; (3) time limit; (4) adjustment to a new culture; (5) desire to make new friendships; (6) relationship with roommates; (7) relationship with teachers, (8) future career; (9) relationship with friends; and 116 (10) identifying with a new cultural group. Santo attributed much of his anxiety to his desire of achieving his goal of acquiring and mastering the English language within the short period of time he had in the country. He had come to the United States for only two quarters. Within the six months he wished to learn as much of the English language and as perfectly as he could. He had high expectations of himself. In fact, be perceived himself to be a perfectionist. As he said, "I aim to succeed because I don't want to be a loser." Not only did he want to learn the English language, he wished to "speak and write like an American"-—to achieve native-like profi- ciency. In fact, so intense was his desire to internalize the language, he made it a point to think in English and reverted to Spanish only in his reflections. He related the interesting phenomenon of dreaming in English, and, once, even translating from Spanish to English in his dream. The quarter during which the interviews were conducted was the last quarter of Santo's stay in the United States. He was experiencing high anxiety over the fact that time was running out for him, and he had not achieved as much as he would have liked to. To quote what he had written in an essay entitled "Things I Worry About:” "My time in the United States is almost over and there is a feeling inside me that is bothering me, 'If I had one more term . .' I'm surprised how fast I learned English in just six months, and I'm pretty sure that if I had one more term left I would improve a lot." Santo was frustrated with classes at the ELC because he felt that they had not helped him to achieve as much as he would have liked to, although he was particularly impressed by one teacher who had taught 117 him a great deal of grammar and writing. He felt that the assignments were too easy. Often times students had to rely on their own resources, and they had to do a great deal of independent reading on their own. For example, at the beginning of the quarter, they were given a hand- out with their reading assignments for the quarter and expected to do their own work. He felt that much of the English he had learned was derived from books he read outside of class rather than from the text- books they used in class. It was different in his own native country. There, teachers taught from the textbooks and provided students with more personal help. It was a method be much preferred. He was also dissatisfied with the conversational practice provided in class. He felt that more correction of their grammar and pronunciation was needed for them to use the language correctly. Santo was required by the ELC to audit a class in the social sciences. He thought that this was a waste of his time and money that could have been devoted to learning the English language. He could see no perceived goal in learning about the problems and economy of the United States since these problems were not applicable to his native country. Although he took all the tests in this course because he wanted to get as much out of the class as he could, he did not feel motivated to read the assignments and felt that he was not spending his timeeusprofitably as he wished. He also could not adjust to instruc- tion by T.V. It was too impersonal for him. He was impatient at having to wait until the next class period to ask questions. Whatwas interesting was a change in the attitude of Santo toward the above problem at the end of the quarter. In the last interview, Santo confessed that he had since been able to see more value in the 118 social science class. He also admitted that his anxiety over the need to acquire more English had dropped and had been replaced by anxiety of a different kind. As the date for his departure drew nearer, he was more concerned about maintaining whatever English he had acquired. He was worried about losing what he had learned and was anxious to find a job before the local university began in September so he could con- tinue to use English. "I want to practice my English and that job is going to be my opportunity," he said. He also planned to take a course in phonetics on his return home in order to keep up with his pronuncia- tion. Although Santo had some problems adjusting to American food when he first arrived in the country, he said he did not experience too much anxiety in trying to adjust to the culture of the country because of his comparatively short stay in the country. At the time of the study, he was planning to return homeixltwo months. To illustrate his role in the new country, he used the interesting analogy of a spectator in a game. As he said, "It is like a game. I am only a spectator in the game. At the beginning of the game, I did not know the rules of the game. Now I can understand the rules of the game much better, but I am still not a player." As a "non-participant" he did not have to experi- ence too much of the stress associated with cross-cultural adjustments. However, there were times when Santo was bothered by the difference in values that the Americans and his own native group attach to differ- ent things. In his country, for example, a great deal of value is placed on friendship. The Latin culture emphasizes group solidarity. He thought that Latin Americans have a better concept of group than the Americans. They also encourage sharing among members of the group. 119 Santo had been accustomed to sharing everything with his friends, from his clothes to his money. When he loaned his friends money, for example, he was not worried as to whether the loan would be returned or not. He knew that his friends would return the favor in one form or another. In the United States, he was bothered by the values the Ameri- cans attach to money and material things. To demonstrate this, he related an experience he had with his roommate. He had bought his American roommate a can of coke one day because he wanted to share with him and because he was his friend. Santo was really upset when his roommate returned to him a can of the same kind of coke the very next day. "What did he think?" Santo said, "To me he was equating my friendship with a can of coke which costs only a couple of dimes." He was also uncomfortable with their materialistic outlook in the matter of selecting a profession. His American friends had urged him to enter the medical profession and specialize in surgery in view of the good income it would bring. He, however, felt that a career should be selected in terms of one's interest rather than the monetary returns and in terms of the service one can render to humanity rather than get out of humanity. However, Santo did emphasize that this difference in values did not bother him as much at the endoftheequarter as it did at the beginning of the quarter. He explained that his attitude had changed with a better understanding of the American culture. Although Santo did not experience much anxiety over his relation- ship with his roommates during the quarter of the interview, he did feel a great deal of anxiety concerning this when he first arrived in the country. At that time he felt lost because his roommates did not provide him with the kind of help and companionship he needed in a new 120 country. He said that although there were three of them in the same room, he experienced real pangs of loneliness and homesickness. His first roommate had greeted him warmly enough when he first arrived, giving the impression of being a "nice guy," but "that was all talk," Santo said. As they got better acquainted, Santo perceived him to be "selfish and money conscious." He felt put off by his impersonal ways. His second roommate was no better. Because he was depressed over some family problems, he lay in the room smoking all day. Fortunately for Santo, both dropped out of school at the end of the quarter. When Santo returned from New York to an empty room after the Christmas vacation, he again experienced acute loneliness. He felt homesick and sorely missed his old friends. After the second quarter had begun, however, the situation improved considerably. One of Santo's new roommates was learning Spanish as a second language. In return for the help that Santo gave him with Spanish, he was able to help Santo with his English. They were thus able to provide mutual help and com- panionship for each other. This did much to alleviate Santo's loneli- ness and to lower his anxiety. In writing, Santo said he did not experience as much anxiety over the inability to think in English as the ability to use English words. He defined his main problem as thatof finding the appropriate words to express the rich ideas he had in an interesting and original way. He had the general terms to use, but he had difficulty in finding the specific words needed to express what he had in mind. He was also con- cerned about the impression he would make on his readers and whether he had effectively conveyed his concepts. 121 Anxiety Profile There appeared to be a discrepancy between what Santo perceived to be his anxiety state and what he reported on the self-evaluation questionnaires. In response to questions during the interview, Santo said be perceived his anxiety to be high at the beginning of the quar- ter, but because of a change in attitude and situation, his anxiety had dropped to a moderate level. On the state anxiety scale, however, his score of 31, 32, and 31 on the three different administrations of the questionnaires showed him a low anxiety subject, and the scores gave no indication of any significant changes in the level of his anxiety (see Table 12). Santo's trait anxiety score of 32 points was also very close to his state anxiety scores. On the teacher's evaluation scale he scored 23 points, and his writing apprehension score was 51, indicative of moderate anxiety. His achievement score of 3 points also did not provide very much indication of the progress he had made. TABLE 12 ANXIETY SCORES OF SANTO Variables Possible Scores Actual Scores State Anxiety 1 80 31 State Anxiety 2 80 32 State Anxiety 3 8O 31 Trait Anxiety 80 32 Writing Apprehension 120 51 Teachers' Evaluation 80 23 122 Effects of Anxiety In describing the effects of anxiety, Santo said when he was ner- vous, he would smoke a great deal. The effects of anxiety on his per- formance varied at different times. It facilitated his performance when it motivated him to achieve more, for example, his anxiety over acquiring English within a limited time and the stress of a test would motivate him to apply himself more diligently to the task of learning; hence he would achieve better results. At other times, however, anxiety would create confusion in his mind and lead to poorer performance. Strategies for Handling Anxiety Prior to his arrival in the United States, Santo would turn to his friends for help in times of anxiety. He felt that being in the United States had been a good experience in that it had helped him to develop independence and self-confidence. He was better able to perceive him- self in the new culture. He, therefore, tried to handle the anxiety himself by thinking about the problem that contributed to his anxiety and trying to find the best solution for lowering his anxiety. For example, when he first arrived, he had stomach upsets because of the food, but he conditioned himself to take it by reminding himself that he would have to bear with the problem for only a few months. There was, therefore, no cause for anxiety. As for his anxiety over adjusting to his roommates and the new culture, he tried to remind himself that he was merely "a spectator and not a player in the game." Soon the game would be over. Moreover, his overwhelming commitment to the task of 123 learning and mastering the English language had helped to minimize all other problems not associated with the problem of acquiring the lan- guage. He believed that by keeping himself busy with achieving his intended goal he had less worries and less anxiety over other problems. Summary Much of Santo's anxiety can be attributed to his great desire of learning and mastering the English language within the time limit he had in the United States and the high expectation he had of himself. Like Ikusan, he was dissatisfied with the methods of instruction at the ELC and a social science class he was required to audit because he felt they were not contributing much to his progress. A change in attitude brought about by a better understanding of the American culture and his overwhelming commitment to the task of acquiring the target language did much to reduce his anxiety over problems related to social/cultural adjustments in the country. Place of Learning English Among Anxiety Factors Of the six case study subjects, three have ranked success in learn- ing English as fourth in importance among a number of anxiety-inducing factors, one as fifth in importance, and one has listed it as belonging to category 2, coming after personal problems such as finance and per- sonal health and political conditions of her native country. Only Santo, who had come to the country for the specific purpose of acquiring English has ranked it second among the factors contributing most to his 124 anxiety. Both Santo and Ikusan, who had come to the country for the same purpose as Santo, found this as a source of anxiety because they were dissatisfied with what they had achieved within the time limit they had. For those who were learning English as a preparation for formal academic programs in the university, success in acquiring the language was related only to their anxiety in achieving an acceptable score at the ELC in order to be admitted to their major fields or to their anxiety over success in their academic programs. Except for Santo and Ikusan, therefore, it appeared that, with the case study sub- jects, at least, the actual process of learning English was not the chief contributory cause of their anxiety. Problems Common to Case Study Subjects In examining the factors that the case study subjects have listed as contributing to their anxiety, I found that the most common problems contributing to subjects' anxiety were their concern over financial problems and their future career. Five out of the six subjects listed these as their problems. There was also a noticeable difference in the problems that troubled the older and the younger subjects. All of the younger sub- jects expressed concern over their future career either because they had not decided on a profession or they were uncertain about the future of the career they had selected. The subjects also shared problems of adjusting to living conditions in the dormitory. They were bothered by the noise and loud blasts of rock and roll music or the inconsiderate attitude of their roommates. They also found it difficult to take the 125 food provided in the dormitory. Because most of these younger subjects were assuming their independent role for the first time in their lives, they were often bothered by their inability to develop meaningful rela- tionships with their American friends and by what they felt to be an impersonal and a materialistic outlook in the attitude of the Americans. As for the older subjects, they had less concern with cultural adjustments either because they were not living in the dormitory, and, consequently, had less contacts with the new cultural group than the younger subjects had, or, if they were living in the dorm, their matu- rity and their background helped to minimize the problems encountered. It appeared that what concerned the older subjects most were problems related to their family, their financial situation and the political conditions of their countries. Finally, although most expressed satisfaction with the teachers and the methods of instruction at the ELC, all of them were concerned that the English taught them at the ELC had not developed in them the communicative competence needed to function in real life situations. The academic English they learned also did not provide them with the technical vocabulary needed for success in the various fields. Summary In this chapter I have described the data collected from six case study subjects in an attempt to discover the factors contributing to anxiety in an ESL situation, the effects of anxiety on their perfor— mance perceived by the subjects, the strategies employed by them to handle their anxiety, the place of learning English among a number of 126 anxiety factors, and the problems common to the subjects. Results indicated that while subjects shared some common problems, there was a difference in the problems encountered by the older and younger learners and also a variation in the importance they attached to various problems. Results also showed that the place of learning English in a number of factors contributing to the anxiety of the case study subjects was determined by their purpose in coming to the United States. It was a main source of anxiety only if they had come to the country with the specific goal of learning and mastering the English language within a time limit. NOTES The names of the six case study subjects, as they appear in this report, are fictitious. 127 CHAPTER V SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, AND EXTENSIONS Summary This research has been designed as an exploratory study to dis- cover the most effective method for collecting data on anxiety in an ESL situation and to suggest future directions research may take in investigating the role and influence of anxiety in the acquisition of English as a second language. Three methods were used to collect the data from 43 D- and E-level students at the ELC: (1) students' self- report of their own anxiety states, employing self-evaluation instru- ments developed by Spielberger et al., and Daly and Miller; (2) teach- ers' evaluation of students' anxiety states, using a teachers' evalua— tion scale developed from the State Anxiety Scale; and (3) a series of in-depth interviews of six case study subjects, including a ranking task, a series of "standardized” interview questions, and essays writ- ten by subjects in their writing class. The study was aimed at answering the following questions: (1) What is the relationship between anxiety and success in the acquisition of English as a second language? (2) What is the relationship between state anxiety and trait anxiety? (3) What are some of the more important factors contributing to anxiety in the ESL situation as 128 129 perceived by the learners? (4) Where in a list of anxiety-inducing factors does the actual task of learning the English language stand? (5) How do subects perceive anxiety to affect their performance? (6) What strategies do they generally employ to control anxiety? (7) Since the dataxmne collected from the writing class, how much of the anxiety can be attributed to writing apprehension? and (8) Are teachers aware of the actual anxiety states of their students, that is, is there a relationship between students' report of their anxiety states and their teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states? An analysis of the data collected by the self-assessment measures and the teachers' evaluation scale showed the following results: (1) There was no correlation between anxiety and success in the acqui- sition of English as a second language; (2) there was a positive rela- tionship between state anxiety and trait anxiety; (3) no relationship was established between state anxiety and writing apprehension; and (4) there was no correlation between students' report of their own anxiety states and their teachers' perception of their anxiety states. The interviews, the ranking of anxiety factors and the essays written by subjects revealed that the most common problems contributing to the ESL learners' anxiety were financial problems, concern over their future careers, their success in acquiring the English language, food, relationship with friends, frustration with methods of instruc- tion, relationship with teachers, the time limit given by their sponsors for them to complete their program in the United States, health of family members, personal health, political conditions in their native country, and adjustment to the new culture. Most sub- jects shared anxiety over their financial position and their future 130 careers. However, there appeared to be a difference in the problems that concerned the older and the younger learners. The older learners reported more concern over problems connected with the well-being of their family members and the political conditions of their native countries, while younger subjects said they were preoccupied with problems related to their future careers and adjustment to the new culture and a new learning environment. Results also indicated that the actual process of learning English was a chief contributory cause of Subjects' anxiety only if they had come to the United States with the Specific purpose of learning and mastering the English language within a few months. From the description of the strategies that subjects said they used to handle their anxiety, I observed three kinds of strategies used: (1) preventive strategies; (2) strategies designed to solve anxiety-causing problems; and (3) strategies used to camouflage their anxiety. Subjects also indicated that anxiety sometimes had a facilitating and sometimes a debilitating effect on their performance, depending on the time and the situation. Discussion Results of Data Obtained by Anxiety Measures Pearson product-moment correlation of the state anxiety scores of the 43 D- and E-level subjects with their final course grades as well as their achievement scores showed no relationship between anxiety 131 and success in the acquisition of English as a second language, that is, anxiety cannot be used as predictor in the successful learning of the language, if learning is reliably and validly measured by final course grades and/or the achievement scores. Statistical computation of the correlation between subjects' state anxiety scores as measured by Spielberger et al.'s A-State Scale and their trait anxiety scores as measured by the A-Trait Scale showed a significant positive correlation. This finding is consistent with Spielberger's theory that individuals with high trait anxiety are likely to demonstrate high state anxiety as well because of a tendency on their part "to perceive a wider range of situations as dangerous or threatening."1 Pearson product-moment correlation of subjects' state anxiety scores with the teachers' evaluation of their anxiety states showed no relationship between the two, that is, there was no correspondence between subjects' self—report of their own anxiety states and their teachers' perception of their anxiety states. It suggests that while teachersvunx9aware of some anxiety of some students, they were not perceptive of the subjects' anxiety states to the same degree that the subjects themselves were perceptive of their own anxiety states. Also, the results showed that teachers had a tendency of assigning lower anxiety to the subjects than the subjects themselves did. It is to be noted that anxiety is one of the more subtle and less obvious affective variables. Unless the teachers were unusually per— ceptive or the subjects unusually demonstrative, it was difficult for the teachers to detect the real feelings of the subjects within the short period of ten weeks. This difficulty was accentuated by the fact 132 that the subjects were drawn from the writing classes. In the ordin- ary classroom situation, teachers do not have too many opportunities to be thoroughly acquainted with each student because of the class size. In the writing classes, they have even fewer opportunities. They meet with the students only one hour a day. Often much of what they know of the students is based on what the students have written in their essays. Unless the students have been absolutely frank and honest in expressing their feelings on paper--something which most of the ESL studentsvunwaunable to do because of their limited English vocabulary or were unwilling because of cultural constraints--the teachers involved in the study had no way of perceiving how the stu- dents actually felt. With a variation regarding emotion display rules across cultures and with so many different cultures represented in the classes, it was almost impossible for the American teachers to observe and understand the actual anxiety state of each student. As Taylor has pointed out, students from certain cultures display their feelings so differently from Americans that they miss the non-verbal signals altogether. What is more significant is that some cultures teach their young to mask their emotions, especially in the presence of authority figures. In order for teachers to detect such emotions as boredom, pleasure, frustration or anxiety, the mask of the students must be off. Ironi— cally, anxiety serves to strengthen rather than lower the mask. The implication is clear: the results reflects the tremendous odds against which the ESL teachers must work in order to understand and to know their students so that they can provide them with the emotional help they need. It also emphasizes the need for teachers to 133 acquaint themselves with the cultures and emotional display rules of their students as well as their personal problems if they want to interpret the behavior of their students accurately. Results also showed no significant relationship between state anxiety and writing apprehension. An examination of Daly and Miller's instrument used to measure writing apprehension as well as the data provided by subjects in the essays they wrote in their writing classes can perhaps throw light on the lack of relationship between the two variables. Daly and Miller's instrument measures anxiety about writing such as fear of evaluation and anxiety over difficulty in expressing ideas and in organizing thoughts on paper. While the writing apprehension of the subjects can be traced to certain problems common to native speakers of English, for example, an inherent dislike for writing, the inability to put thoughts on paper, problem with organization of thoughts, the study showed that other problems more significant to non-native speakers of English are not measured by Daly and Miller's instrument. The most common problem mentioned by subjects in the interviews was the frustration over their inability to express concepts and ideas appropriately because of the limited English vocabulary and idioms they have acquired. Mbreover, there is a variation in concept regard- ing things and objects across cultures. There may not be the English vocabulary or idiom to exactly describe the subjects' concept regard- ing things and objects as perceived in the context of their native cultures. One subject, for example, described his predicament of trying to write in English with an "Arabic mind." Another expressed 134 deep frustration over his inability to translate "beautiful ideas and thoughts" into writing. To quote a third, "It bothers me when I am trying to express some insight of myself and I find that I have no means to put it into words on a paper." Associated with this is the problem that some subjects have with putting parts of a sentence together because of variations in gram— matical rules across languages. In some languages, for example, there is a reverse ordering of the parts of a sentence from that of the English language. Another frustration over writing also may come from the inability of some ESL students to think directly in English. For some subjects the process of writing involves translating their ideas and concepts from their native language into English before they are able to write them down. Such individuals generally find the time limit imposed on them in the writing class a real source of anxiety. As one subject has pointed out, it takes him a long time to write one or two pages of essay because he has to refer to the dictionary often, but the usual time alloted (a half hour) does not permit him to complete his essay. These problems defined by the subjects seem to suggest a need for alternative approaches to the teaching of writing in the ESL class, for example, allowing for more free writing, personal writing, or pre-writing. Aside from showing us that some of the more significant problems confronting ESL writing students have not been measured by instruments designed to measure the writing apprehension of the native speakers of English, the present study has shown us that there are many other factors that can contribute to the anxiety of the students in the ESL 135 classroom, for example, personal problems, problems associated with adjustment to a new culture and a new learning environment. Also, the case study results have shown us that subjects who were highly anxious over some other problems were not necessarily anxious over their writing problems. Moreover, the anxiety here might have been peculiar to the ESL situation and hence was not measurable by the ordinary scale designed for measuring writing apprehension. Writing apprehension is, therefore, to be considered only as one of the many factors that influence the anxiety level of the ESL learner rather than as the chief contributory factor. Use of Anxiety Measure For the self-assessment of anxiety by means of anxiety measures, 1 employed two instruments: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension. The results obtained by the State—Trait Anxiety Inventory did suggest that the instrument measured what it proposed to measure. According to Spielberger et al., the A-State Scale has been designed to measure state anxiety. One of the characteristics of state anxiety is that it fluctuates over time and according to situations. That the instrument was sensitive to the fluctuations in the anxiety level of subjects is demonstrated in the data collected from the three adminis— trations. Although a match-pair t-test and a repeated measures analy- sis of the data from the three administrations showed no significant differences, a look at Table 13 would show that the mean of the anxiety scores obtained from the first two administrations of the A-State 136 Scale (X = 41.837) and X==(43.512) was higher than the mean of the scores obtained from the final administration (X = 41.070). TABLE 13 MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION OF STATE ANXIETY SCORES Time Mean Standard Deviation lst Administration (2nd week) 41.837 10.316 2nd Administration (4th week) 43.512 10.767 3rd Administration (8th week) 41.070 10.310 The first two sets of the state anxiety scores were obtained during the first five weeks of the winter quarter, at a time when most subjects were experiencing the anxiety associated with the need to adjust to a new country, a new culture, and a new learning environment. There was an interval of six weeks between the first and final admin- istrations of the A—State Scale. During the six weeks certain changes could have taken place to effect a change in the anxiety levels of the subjects. For example, subjects who experienced the high anxiety of having to adjust to a new country would find their anxiety lowering with their increasing familiarity with the environment. However, I have also pointed out that although this instrument had been modified by the provision of additional explanation, I found that in the study of anxiety in the ESL situation, an instrument more specific to the ESL 137 situation is needed. The questionnaire measures anxiety in general. In responding to items in the questionnaire, subjects indicated dif- ficulty in applying the statements to their situations. They felt that the items in the questionnaire should define the situations more specifically, for example, the statement "I feel nervous when speak- ing in English" would be more comprehensible to them than the more general statement "I feel nervous" and the statement "I feel at ease when conversing in English" than "I feel at ease." The development of an instrument to include the factors that cause anxiety for ESL learners as outlined in Chapter 4 may better measure anxiety in the ESL situation. To measure the writing apprehension of the subjects, I used Daly and Miller's scale for measuring writing apprehension. As has been shown in the discussion of results, data from the case study showed that many of the problems peculiar to ESL writing students were not covered by this instrument. Again, I feel that the development of a new instrument to include the writing problems described by the sub- jects will provide for better measurement of writing apprehension in the ESL writing class. The main advantage I can see in the use of anxiety measures is that it is economical in terms of time. If the subjects are close by, the data can be collected simply and quickly. They can also be analyzed by the computer. The use of anxiety measures also allows for the measurement of large groups of subjects for purpose of comparison and contrast and for the observation of general patterns or trends. This is especially important, for large numbers tend to increase the reliability of the 138 data and to lend generality to the results. The disadvantages I observed in the use of anxiety measures to collect data in the ESL classroom are: 1. The use of anxiety measures involves the understanding of and responding to a number of statements by the subjects. If the ques- tionnaires are in English, subjects need to have a certain level of proficiency in the language in order to respond to the statements. Hence,if the researcher wants to ensure the reliability of the data collected, he is limited to using advanced level students as his sub- jects. In the present research, for example, although the subjects were selected from advanced level classes, they still indicated prob- lems with understanding certain items. Also, with the questionnaires written in English, there is a possibility that some subjects may per- ceive these to be tests of their language ability. The anxiety gener- ated may then serve to bias the results. 2. It is difficult for the researcher to test the reliability of the data collected. Subjects may respond to items in the questionnaire in a way they think the researcher would like them to, or in a way they would like to appear to the researcher. It is not impossible but difficult to determine if subjects had been frank and honest in their response to the items. With adult foreign students, they may feel embarrassed to ask for explanation of items they do not understand. Also, concepts vary with different cultures; hence,the subjects' under- standing of certain items may differ from that of the researcher. It is true that the reliability of the data can be tested by comparing the data collected from more than one administration of the instrument, but the researcher runs the risk of killing the interest of the 139 subjects in the research. For example, in the present study, the State Anxiety Scale was administered thrice. I observed that, although subjects participated gladly and enthusiastically in the first adminis— tration of the questionnaire, by the third administration, they were already showing signs of impatience and boredom with the project. 3. In this research, teachers were most cooperative and helpful in the selection of the case study subjects and in the collection of the group data. However, the researcher can anticipate situations in which the teachers either do not believe in the purpose of the study nor want to cooperate. Even if teachers are cooperative, he can anticipate problems in getting the most suitable date for the collec- tion of his data, because he has to select a date convenient for the teacher and for the subjects. 4. Since this method will involve large groups of subjects, and if the data is to be collected from more than one administration, the researcher can expect problems with the loss of subjects due to sick- ness or absence, or items in questionnaire left uncompleted. 5. Unlike the case studies, individual variations are submerged in group data with the use of large groups. Unless a subject has achieved unusual scores, he is not noticed in studies of this nature. Teachers' Evaluation of Anxiety In the present study the teachers evaluated each subject's anxiety in their classes by means of a teachers' evaluation scale developed from the A-State Scale. This data was supplemented by the 140 evaluation made of each student by their teachers at the end of the quarter. Although the teachers involved in this study were most coopera- tive and helpful in providing the information needed, for reasons mentioned in the discussion of group results, I found that the use of teachers' evaluation was not as helpful in providing information regarding subjects' anxiety states as I would have liked. However, the teachers' evaluation was useful for providing a different per- spective for looking at the phenomenon of anxiety in students. The observations they made of students' behavior and their response to their classwork in the term end evaluation was helpful in explaining the results of some of the data. It was also valuable in offering a comparison of the anxiety profile of each student--how he appeared to others and how he actually perceived himself. Case Study Results In examining the data provided by the case studies, I found that in terms of frequency, three problems appeared to be most common to the six subjects. Five out of six subjects listed these as problems causing their anxiety: success in acquiring English; concern over their future career; and their financial position. Of the three, worry over financial problems was ranked first and concern over future career was ranked second in importance by more than one subject (see Table 14). All six of the subjects listed success in acquiring English as one of the causes of their anxiety, but, in terms of importance, two subjects had ranked it second, three subjects had 141 TABLE 14 SUBJECTS' RANKING OF ANXIETY FACTORS Anxiety Factors Subjects* A J F I H S Personal health 8 l 8 Health of family members 1 9 1 Marital problems Social problems 10 3 Adjustment to new culture 7 3 4 Financial problems 3 l 1 10 10 Food 2 3 l 9 Living conditions 1 6 8 Schoolwork 2 7 Identifying with new cultural group 6 10 Losing identity with native culture 3 Political conditions in native country 7 l 2 Pressure from sponsors 6 Classwork at ELC 2 3 Frustrations with methods of instruction 2 3 1 Relationship with friends 9 4 6 9 Fear or losing old friends 5 3 Desire to make new friend- ships 10 7 5 Relationship with roommates 8 6 Relationship with teachers 9 4 7 Success in acquiring English 4 5 2 4 4 2 Meeting expectations of parents 2 5 Time limit 1 2 3 Future career 2 4 2 5 8 *Subjects: A = Ahmed J = Juan F = Farida I - Ikusan H = Hassan S = Santo 142 ranked it as fourth, and one subject as fifth in importance. There- fore of the three problems, it appears that subjects were most con- cerned with the problem of finance. In an age of inflation, when the price of education is rocketing and the standard of living is rising, it is not surprising for the average individual to experience anxiety over money. For the foreign students, however, this is often a matter of primary concern. Many reasons are responsible for this, the following which are some of the more important ones. It cannot be denied that despite its falling value, the United States dollar still has one of the highest exchange values in compari- son with the currency of other countries. Although the parents of many foreign students would like to assume full support of the educa- tion of their children, the great difference in exchange value often makes it impossible for them to do so. Many of the foreign students, therefore, would have to find additional sources of income in order to supplement the help they are receiving from home. However, oftentimes because of their student visas, they encounter restrictions regarding the number of hours they can work and the location of their work. This explains why providing for their own educational and personal needs can be such a traumatic experience for the younger students who must assume their new, independent roles for the first time in their lives. With those who have the financial support for their education, the problem may be difficulty in transferring money out of their native country either because of political reasons or governmental restrictions. Anxiety over future career was mentioned by all four of the 143 younger subjects and one of the two older subjects. As has been pointed out in Chapter 4, most of the younger subjects indicated con- cern for their future career either because they had not decided on a career or, if they had already done so, they were uncertain if they had selected the right career. The one older subject who had listed anxiety concerning this problem did so because a change in the politi- cal conditions of her country had influenced the security of her future job. Although success in acquiring English has been listed by all six subjects, in terms of importance, it appears to be the least impor— tant of the three problems most frequently mentioned by the subjects. It was ranked second in importance only by the one subject who was possessed with a tremendous drive to acquire and master the English language within a time period and another subject who had not been accepted into the formal academic problem because of her deficiency in English and she had a time limit to complete her educational pro- gram in this country. Other than that it had been ranked either fourth or fifth in the order of importance by the other subjects. This indicates that for most of the case study subjects, this was not their main concern. Their anxiety over this was related only to their success in their academic program or their need to communicate effectively in the new country. Also, all except one of the subjects had previous exposure to the English language either in the second language classes in their country or in language schools in English; hence,the actual task of learning the language should not be a primary source of anxiety. Next in the list of the most frequently mentioned factors 144 responsible for the anxiety of the subjects were food and relation- ship with friends. Four out of the six subjects listed these as one of their problems. Of the two, food was listed as first, second and third in importance by three subjects and ninth in importance by another. For the two who had listed food as first and second in importance, one had found it especially difficult to adjust to the food (he had stomach upsets and experienced loss in weight), but, as he pointed out in the last interview, time had provided the adjustment and this problem no longer affected him as much as it did when he first arrived in the country. The other subject had been in the country only four weeks at the time of the interview. He was, there- fore, still experiencing "culture shock." However, the fact that food was considered of such importance is significant in showing us that a simple problem like food can be a real source of concern for some stu- dents when they first arrive in the country. Subjects' anxiety over their relationship with friends may be viewed as a part of their difficulty in adjusting to the social system of a new culture. A common complaint of the subjects was their inability to develop close relationships with their American friends because of a perceived impersonal attitude. Note that some subjects had come from high enclosure groups, and hence had greater affiliation needs, into a society which values and emphasizes independence and self-reliance. Subjects, especially the younger ones, found it diffi- cult to accept their new and independent roles. As has been indicated by one of the subjects, time did bring about a change in his attitude towards this problem. After having been in the country for six months, he felt that he could better appreciate the American respect 145 for privacy and self-reliance. In fact, he was happy that it had developed in him more self-confidence. Problems mentioned by at least two of the subjects included frustration with methods of instruction, relationship with teachers, time limit, adjustment to the new culture, health of family members, personal health, and political conditions in their native country. Although these have been mentioned less frequently, it was not an indication that they were less serious in nature, but, with the six subjects at least, these were not their primary concerns. The first three problems can be considered as a part of the subjects' adjust- ment to a new educational system. Several subjects expressed dissatis- faction with the materials taught them at the ELC because they felt that they did not develop in them the communicative competence needed to communicate effectively outside of the classroom. This reflects a misunderstanding of the goals of the ELC for the learners. The pri- mary goal of the ELC is to prepare foreign students with a deficiency in English for formal academic work in the university. To prepare them to function in the new culture is only a secondary goal, which the administrators hope, can be achieved by assigning students to take courses in American culture and, if they are unmarried, by assigning them to live with American roommates in the dormitories. Many of the learners, however, want to learn English not only to get into academic programs but also to function effectively in the new country. Also, some of these learners are non-academic students and are enrolled in the ELC for a quarter or two in order to learn the English language. Others complained that the ELC did not help them to develop the tech- nical vocabulary needed for their major fields. Again, this is due to 146 a misunderstanding regarding the function of the ELC. The ELC aims to improve the general academic proficiency of the students in English, but the more specific areas are left to the initiative of the students and their specific departments. Students also complained about the assignments given by the ELC teachers. However, an examination of the nature of their complaint showed that their dissatisfaction was due more to individual variations than to the inefficiency of the teachers. Two subjects expressed con- cern that their teachers had given them too few assignments to keep them busy and that the assignments were too easy. These two subjects had come to the country in order to learn the English language within a time limit; hence their anxiety over this self-imposed task made them feel that the ELC was not contributing enough to their progress in the way of assignments. In contrast, a third subject expressed anxiety over the heavy assignments given by the ELC teachers because she felt she had too many responsibilities at home to allow her to cope with them. Another complaint was that the ELC teachers did not provide stu- dents with enough personal help. Again this is indicative of diffi- culty in adjusting to an educational system which requires independence and originality. In this respect, the older learners were better able to cope with the problem. A common anxiety concerning writing shared by several of the sub- jects was the time limit of 30 minutes given for students to write their essays in class and in an examination. They felt that this time limit did not accommodate the difficulties that foreign students have with organizing and expressing their thoughts in the English language 147 nor did it allow them time to search for the proper word or phrase to express their ideas and to refer to their dictionaries. They felt that this time limit did not provide for the inability of some stu- dents to think directly in English. Concern over health of family members was particularly mentioned by the two older subjects who have families. One was worried about the family he had left behind in his native country, while the other was concerned that her family should keep healthy so that she could devote her time and energy towards the fulfilling of her goal in this country. The two older subjects also defined political conditions in their native country as one of the problems contributing to their anxiety. One had ranked it first in importance because her country was having a political revolution at the time of the study; hence her concern over the safety of her family members and her finance which had been affected by the trouble in her country was foremost in her mind. The other subject had been actively involved in the administration of his country and was duly concerned over the changes that could take place during the time he is away from the country. The least mentioned problems were schoolwork, classwork at the ELC, fear of losing old friends, relationship with roommates and losing identity with native culture. None mentioned marital problems as a cause of their anxiety because four of the subjects were not married and the two who were married were evidently happy with their spouses. In sum, it. would appear that the problems most frequently men- tioned by the subjects as causing their anxiety, aside from worry over 148 their financial problems and the political condition of their native country, were those associated with their adjustment to a new culture and a new educational system rather than that of a social/personal nature, and hence are unique to ESL learners. There was also indication that these problems were not of a permanent nature, but that time spent in the country can bring about a change in attitude towards the problems. Strategies for Handling Anxiety In looking at the strategies that subjects said they commonly employed to handle their anxiety, I observed three kinds of strategies: (1) strategies used to prevent anxiety; (2) strategies designed to solve the problems causing the anxiety; and (3) strategies used to mask or camouflage anxiety. In their attempt to prevent putting themselves into anxiety- provoking situations, some subjects said they tried to plan ahead. For example, one subject said he would prepare for an examination ahead of time so he could avoid the tension associated with last minute cramming. He also tried not to add to his anxiety by not forcing himself to make decisions while under stress. The same sub- ject felt that an optimistic and positive outlook can help an individ- ual to be prepared for anxiety situations. In strategies used to solve the problems contributing to their anxiety, several reported focusing on the problems and exploring various alternatives in an attempt to select the best course of action to reduce their anxiety. They would also look at the problem 149 objectively or try to rationalize and reason themselves out of their anxiety, for example, telling themselves to keep "cool" or convincing themselves to take the food by telling themselves that they needed the food to survive. Others tried to rechannel their energies and to work out their anxiety by keeping themselves busy or by involving themselves in such activities as sports, writing poems or letters, or making journal entries. For the less optimistic, they simply gave up when no solution was forthcoming or took a stoical attitude and resigned themselves to the situation. The most significant strategy described by the one subject was that of total commitment to the task of learning the English language. This, according to him, helped to minimize anxiety connected with all other problems. This seems to indicate that for some subjects, at least, it is possible for them to put their self-actualization needs before their needs for safety, affiliation and so forth. While we cannot control many of the problems caused by social, cultural adjust- ments, we can help students to handle their anxiety better by increasing their commitment to the task of learning the language. Finally, subjects felt that if they could not find any solution to reduce their anxiety, they could at least mask their feelings. Several mentioned that they would try to appear "cool" and composed when anxious in order not to give others the impression that they were immature. Failing to keep a "cool" front, they would then try to keep out of others' way and not let others perceive their anxiety. The implication is clear: students do try to hide their anxiety, and unless teachers are aware of this, they are likely to be deceived by 150 the "cool" front put on by the students. Case Studies Of the three methods employed in this study, I found the case study approach most interesting and fruitful and the interview a superior tool for collecting information on an effective variable like anxiety. In conducting the interviews with the case study subjects I observed the following advantages: 1. Unlike the use of anxiety measures, when each subject appears only as a figure or a symbol in a set of data, in case studies, the researcher has the advantage of knowing each subject personally and often intimately. With the personal information provided by subjects, he is better able to perceive their feelings and hence to offer a more objective evaluation. He also has additional information in the form of non—verbal signals sent out by the subjects during the interview. This, I believe, is particularly important in a research designed to investigate a phenomenon like anxiety. 2. The length of time involved in a case study enables the researcher to build up a rapport with his subjects, thus rendering the subjects more willing and cooperative in divulging such personal information as factors contributing to their anxiety and their own reactions to anxiety. The time also provides for observation of changes in attitude. 3. The case study approach allows the researcher to fill out the data in a way that anxiety measures do not. In the interview, the 151 researcher is able to probe and dig until he comes upon the information he needs. For example, when a perfunctory answer is given by the sub- ject or the researcher is not satisfied with any response, he can always probe for a fuller statement in subsequent interviews. 4. In case studies, the researcher is better able to test the reliability and consistency of information collected in that he is able to compare the information collected from different interviews. Also, he is able to make sure that subjects understood each question-- something he is unable to do when collecting data from large groups. In the interview, he is able to explain each question thoroughly and, from the response of the subjects, determine if the questions have been understood. This is especially important when foreign students with a deficiency in English are involved in the study. 5. The interviews are not boundby the constrains of time and place. The researcher and the subject are able to pick the time and the place most suitable for solicitating the information needed. For example, when subjects give indication of a resistance to some ques— tions on certain days, the researcher always has the prerogative of asking the same questions (perhaps phrased differently) in subsequent interviews when subjects may be more responsive. On days when subjects are less ready to talk, the interview can be cut short, and on days when they are more articulate, the time can be stretched. 6. The interview is also a better tool to gauge fluctuation and changes in the attitude of the subjects. As has been shown in the report on the results of the case studies, subjects either reported their change of attitude or I was able to perceive this change during the course of the case study. 152 7. The case study approach also has a potential for bringing out individual variations better than any other approaches. Each indi- vidual is studied and evaluated in the light of his or her personal background, needs and emotions. This is especially significant, con- sidering recent trends which emphasizes more focus on individual variations. 8. Some students, especially ESL learners, are better able to express themselves in speech than in writing. The interview will pro- vide them with more opportunities for clarifying their points and for filling in details. Also, psychologically, some subjects feel less hesitant in speaking about their problems than in putting them down on paper. 9. The case study need not be limited to subjects with a high level of proficiency in English. If the researcher and subjects speak a common language, students in the lower levels can participate just as effectively in the studies. Like every method used there are certain disadvantages in this approach that should be noted: 1. Case studies are time consuming. Subjects will have to be studied over a period of time in order for the data to be more valuable and reliable. For example, in the present study much of the time spent in the first few interviews was devoted to getting acquainted with the subjects and winning their confidence, this being pertinent for subjects to divulge personal information. 2. Often times, in order to solicit the needed information, the researcher needs to build up a rapport with the subjects. This requires a great deal of patience, tact, and understanding. The 153 researcher must be prepared to bear with the frustration of not being able to collect any information on certain days because subjects are unresponsive or do not appear for the interview. 3. In the present research, I was fortunate to have six very reliable and cooperative subjects because they were recommended by their teachers as students who would most likely provide the informa— tion needed. There are situations, especially in controlled research, when the researcher runs the risk of getting subjects that are unre- sponsive and uncooperative. Moreover, in case studies involving ESL learners, the researcher may find subjects with a problem in listening comprehension. To sum up my evaluation of the three methods employed for the purposes of this study, I found the case study method most interesting and helpful in soliciting the data needed. The use of anxiety measures was useful in providing background information against which data collected from the case studies could be compared and interpreted, and the use of teachers' evaluation offered another perspective from which subjects' anxiety states could be studied. Extensions This study has demonstrated that anxiety is a subtle and often imperceptible phenomenon. It has also shown us different areas that need to be explored in order to provide a more complete picture of the role and influence of anxiety in the ESL classroom. Based on the findings of the research, I would, therefore, like to make the 154 following recommendations for extending research on anxiety in the ESL situation: 1. Research on anxiety has shown that the effects of anxiety vary according to complexity of tasks. The data for this research have been collected from the ELC writing classes. Part of the data show the problems that are peculiar to ESL writing students. I would recommend a duplication of this research in the reading, grammar and speaking and listening classes and the data collected from the differ- ent classes compared to see if the anxiety level of the subjects varies according to the classes and to determine if there are problems common to all the classes. Also,research can involve a comparison of the data collected from a writing class involving native speakers of English and the data collected from ESL writing students. 2. The State—Trait Anxiety Inventory and the writing apprehension scale have been designed for native speakers of English. Results of the interviews have shown that many factors that contribute to sub— jects' anxiety are specific to the ESL situation. Will the development of an instrument to measure the anxiety of ESL learners over problems peculiar to the ESL classroom lead to different results? This is a question that remains to be explored. 3. This research did not provide for a control of age, intelli- gence, educational and language background and degree of exposure to English. I suggest a duplication of this research, using a much larger population, with a control of these variables, and then a com- parison made of how these variables influence the effects of anxiety in the ESL classroom. 4. Teachers at the ELC observed that the difficulty of students 155 with speaking and writing varies according to race and culture. For example, they observed that Arab students have less problems with speaking than the Japanese students, and the Japanese students have less problems with writing than the Arab students. It would be useful to make a comparison of the problems contributing to anxiety of people from different cultures. This, I believe, will be particularly valuable to teachers in helping them to avoid situations that may induce anxiety and to better understand the behavior of students from various cultural backgrounds. 5. This research involved only subjects of the advanced levels. With the development of more specific and simple anxiety measures designed for non-native speakers of English, perhaps the students in the lower levels can be included and a comparison made of the anxiety- causing factors in the different levels. 6. One or two case study subjects have indicated a change in attitude toward problems that cause anxiety after a certain length of time in the country, thus suggesting that length of stay in a country makes a difference in the problems that contribute to the anxiety of the ESL learners. The data for this research were collected within a period of ten weeks. I would recommend a longitudinal study to cover two or more quarters so that subjects can be observed for changes in attitude. 7. Finally, subjects have indicated that anxiety can have a facilitating or debilitating effect on their performance, depending on the time and situation, as well as the nature of the task. Study can be made of the stituations in which anxiety facilitates and of situations in which it debilitates performance. 156 Summary Aside from showing us the direction that future research on anx- iety in the ESL situation can take, this study has provided insights on some of the more important factors that contribute to the anxiety of the ESL learners, the effects of anxiety on their learning, and some of the strategies that some learners use to control their anx- iety. The results hold implications not only for the researcher but also for teachers and planners of ESL programs. They demonstrate that the actual process of learning English as a second language means the emotional involvement of the learners in their adjustment to the new culture and to a new learning environment. Unless the problems contributing to their anxiety are solved, the learners cannot commit themselves totally to the task of acquiring the new language. An awareness of the problems associated with the process of adjustment will, therefore, prepare the ESL learners to cope with the situation as well as help teachers to better perceive their students' emotional states and to avoid situations that will lead to anxiety in them. Schumann has suggested the deve10pment of a learner preparation program to orientate foreign students to the language learning pro- cess.2 A part of this program can be devoted to helping learners foresee the problems associated with social/cultural adjustments and adjustments to a new educational system in order to ameliorate their negative influences and to facilitate the acquisition of the target language. This, together with a greater awareness of students' needs and problems developed in teachers by means of in-service programs designed to include the findings of this research and those of future 157 research on the affective component of language learning, it is hoped that more effective ESL programs can be planned and the experience of acquiring English as a second language made more pleasurable for the ESL learners. NOTES lEric Gaudry and Charles D. Spielberger, Anxiety and Educational Achievement (New York: John Wiley & Sons Australasia Pty Ltd., 1971), p. 14. Francine Schumann and John H. Schumann, "Diary of a Language Learner: An Introspective Study of Second Language Learning," in On TESOL '77 Teaching and Learning English as a Second Language: Trends in Research and Practice,exb. H. Douglas Brown, Carlos Alfredo Yorio and Ruth H. Crymes (Washington, D.C.: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, 1977), p. 248. 158 APPENDIX A INSTRUMENTS USED IN STUDY SELF-EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE Developed by C. D. Spielberger, R. L. Gorsuch STAI FORM X-l DIRECTIONS: A number of statements which peOple have used to describe themselves are given below. Read each statement and then blacken in the appropriate circle to the right of the statement to indicate how you feel right now, that is, at this moment. There are no right or wrong answers. Do not spend too much time on any one statement but give the answer which seems to describe your present feelings best. In the space after each statement you may put in additional comments which explain or further describe your feel- ings if you wish. 1. I feel calm 2. I feel secure (safe) 3. I am tense 4. I am regretful (sad because of what is lost, gone, or done) 5. I feel at ease (free from discomfort, pain, or worry) 6. I feel upset (disturbed or troubled) 7. I am presently worrying over possible misfortunes 8. I feel rested 9. I feel anxious 159 and R. Lushene 11V IV ION IVHMEWOS OS ATHLVHHOOW 0 OS HDflW XHHA O 10. ll. 12. 13. 14. 15. l6. l7. l8. 19. 20. 160 I feel comfortable I feel self-confident I feel nervous I am jittery (very nervous) I feel "high strung" (highly sensitive) I am relaxed I feel content I am worried I feel over-excited and "rattled" (nervous and confused) I am joyful I feel pleasant 11V IV ION IVHMHWOS OS ATHIVHHGOW OS HDHW KHHA O 161 SELF-EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE STAI FORM X-2 DIRECTIONS: A number of statements which people have used to describe themselves are given below. Read each statement and then blacken in the appropriate circle to the right of the statement to indicate how you generally feel. There are no right or wrong answers. Do not spend too much time on any one statement but give the answer which seems to describe how you generally feel. In the space after each statement you may put in additional comments which explain or further des- cribe your feelings if you wish. 21. I feel pleasant 22. I tire quickly 23. I feel like crying 24. I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be 25. I am losing out on things because I can't make up my mind soon enough 26. I feel rested 27. I am "calm, cool, and collected" (in control of my emotions) 28. I feel that difficulties are piling up so that I cannot overcome them HHAHN ISONTV O SHWIIHNOS NHIdO SAVMTV ISOWTV 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 162 I worry too much over something that really doesn't matter I I am happy am inclined to take things hard lack self-confidence feel secure (safe) try to avoid facing a crisis or difficulty _ feel blue (depressed, unhappy, or gloomy) __ am content Some unimportant thought runs through my mind and bothers me I put them out of my mind I am a steady person take disappointments so keenly that I can't I get in a state of tension or turmoil (great confusion or disturbance) as I think over my recent concerns and interests HHAHN ISOWTV O SHWIIHHOS NHIJO SXVMTV ISOWTV O 163 WRITING APPREHENSION SCALE Developed by John A. Daly and Michael D. DIRECTIONS: Below are a series of statements about writing. There are no right or wrong answers to these statements. Please indicate the degree to which each statement applies to you by blackening the appropriate circle to the right of the state- ment. While some of these statements may seem repetitious, take your time and try to be as honest as possible. Thank you for your coopera- tion in this matter. 10. 11. 12. l3. 14. 15. 16. 17. I avoid writing. I have no fear of my writing being evaluated. I look forward to writing down my ideas. I am afraid of writing essays when I know they will be evaluated. Taking a composition course is a very frightening experience. Handing in a composition makes me feel good. My minds seems to go black when I start on work on a composition. Expressing ideas through writing seems to be a waste of time. I would enjoy submitting my writing to maga- zines for evaluation and publication. I like to write my ideas down. I feel confident in my ability to clearly express my ideas in writing. I like to have my friends read what I have written. I'm nervous about writing. People seem to enjoy what I write. I enjoy writing. I never seem to be able to clearly write down my ideas. Writing is a lot of fun. Miller U3 .'> #3 n ’8 Pa 2 tn 9 r< >’ C) w m F1 0 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 O O O O 0 O O O O O O NIVIHHONH HHHOVSIG C3 HHHOVSIG ATONOHIS O 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 164 I expect to do poorly in composition classes even before I enter them. I like seeing my thoughts on paper. Discussing my writing with others is an enjoyable experience. I have a terrible time organizing my ideas in composition course. When I hand in a composition I know I'm going to do poorly. It's easy for me to write good composition. I don't think I write as well as most other people. I don't like my compositions to be evaluated. I'm no good at writing. HHHOV XTDNOHIS O HHHDV NIVIHHONH HHHOVSIG C> HHHOVSIO ATONOHIS 165 TEACHER'S EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE DIRECTIONS: The following are some statements that can describe the student you are evaluating. Read each statement and then blacken in the appropriate circle to the right of the statement to indicate how the student generally appears to you. In the space after each statement you may put in additional comments which explain)mnurchoice or further describe the student. l. 10. 11. Student appears calm Student appears secure Student appears tense Student appears regretful Student appears at ease Student appears upset Student appears misfortunes to be worrying over possible Student appears rested Student appears anxious Student appears comfortable Student appears self-confident 11V IV ION C) IVHMHNOS 0 OS A'IHIVHEICIOW OS HORN XHHA C) 12. l3. 14. 15. l6. l7. l8. 19. 20. Student appears 166 nervous Student appears jittery Student appears "high strung" Student appears relaxed Student appears content Student appears worried Student appears over-excited and "rattled" Student appears joyful Student appears pleasant 11V IV ION C) IVHMHWOS 0 OS XIEIIVHHCIOW OS HORN XHHA C) APPENDIX B FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO ANXIETY FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO ANXIETY Personal health Health of family members Marital problems Social problems Adjustment to new culture Financial problems Food Living conditions Schoolwork Identifying with new cultural group Losing identity with native culture Political conditions in native country Pressure from sponsors or sponsoring organizations Classwork at ELC Frustrations with methods of instruction Relationship with friends Fear of losing friends Desire to make new friendships Relationship with roommates Relationship with teachers Success in acquiring English Meeting expectations of parents Time limit Future career 167 APPENDIX C PILOT STUDY The Pilot Study On January 9, 1979, a week before the research was begun, I conducted a pilot study to field test two of the instruments employed in the study--the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory developed by Spiel- berger et al., and Daly and Miller's instrument for measuring writing apprehension. Since the two instruments have been designed for native speakers of English, the purpose of the pilot study was to discover the problems that non—native speakers would have in responding to items in the questionnaires and to determine the time needed to fill in the questionnaires. Five subjects were selected from the D-level grammar class of the English Language Center at Michigan State University to participate in the pilot study. There was one subject each from the Republic of China, Korea, Nepal, Poland and Puerto Rico. At the time of the pilot study, the subjects had been enrolled at the English Language Center for no longer than one term. The five students were not taking the writing class from which the subjects for the formal study were drawn and, therefore, were not involved in the main study. Subjects were instructed in the pilot study to fill in the ques- tionnaires and to circle any vocabulary items they had difficulty in understanding. They were also directed to indicate the time they spent in filling out the questionnaires. Subjects spent only twenty-five minutes in filling out the two questionnaires, indicating that the usual time allotted for a class period would be sufficient for subjects to complete the instruments. Results of the pilot study indicated that subjects had a problem 168 169 following the directions-~that there was a need to provide clearer and more detailed instructions. Subjects also had difficulty in under- standing certain vocabulary items--main1y idiomatic expressions like ' and "rattled" found in the state- "jittery," "blue," "high-strung,' ments that made up the questionnaires. 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