Foreign language writing anxiety involves the confusion brought about while one tries to learn a foreign language. For instance, a Japanese trying to learn English will find it challenging. The foreign language writing anxiety brings about a number of problems related to life like low performance in the studies. Nevertheless, success in writing is brought about by a number of things like flow of ideas, self-expression, growing confidence, outsider expectations as well as enjoyment of academic writing - all of which affect students with foreign language anxiety. Students affected by low proficiency are usually more anxious as compared to those with high proficiency - a situation that is known as deficit model. The common problem for all this is lack of writing skills. This is caused by lack of experience in the language as well as lack of vocabulary knowledge. Some of the countries that are affected include the minority from the U.S and Malaysians who are not conversant with English (Nakata, 2006).
Foreign language listening anxiety is another physiological problem that is associated with the area of listening as a part of the study. It is associated with various problems that include emotions, worry and anticipatory test. These are the factors that affect foreign listening capabilities as explained by Young (1988). This could vary in different people around the world depending on their cultures and mode of language. Some of these effects are on reference to sentiment on people’s characters.
The first factor is the emotionality; this includes lack of confidence, dislike, discomfort, alienation, annoyance as well as intimidation. All those factors bring about confusion and interrupt reasoning as well as cognitive assessment thus affecting listening task. If research was to be undertaken, the people with high problem to this emotionality normally experience arousal of emotions and negative feeling while distressed (Dogil & Reiterer, 2006).
Another problem is worry, which interrupts the listening capability to foreign language. Worry relates to cognitive perception to this listening task. This would affect processing of the auditory information. The affected people experience some types of difficulties while listening. The listening complication brings up problems in social expectations, as well as interpersonal problems thus causing worry. These problems can also interrupt language input thus reducing listener’s capacity in paying attention to the linguistic, interpretation of information and encoding (Mercer, Ryan, & Williams, 2012).
The third factor influencing foreign language listening anxiety is the anticipatory fear. This can be said to be an anticipatory aspect of anxiety like psychological construct (Piątkowska & Kościałkowska-Okońska, 2013). Listening can be said to be very anxious and could affect and provoke the activities of the listener (Schwarzer, Bloom, & Shono, 2006). Therefore, the listener does not lack the control of aural flow of the language that is incoming nor could they stop to think. Aural flow refers to the way in which a listener is able to understand, plan, organize and evaluate foreign language. Therefore, the listener is able to interpret the language and learn its elements. This leads to an external locus of control instead of an internal one. For instance, when listening to the telephone people can have different information due to the difference in the language. Cultural aspect of the learner also affects the listening capability of foreign language (Chan, Chin, Nagami, & Suthiwan, 2011). Different cultures pose listening difficulties due to language barriers around the world. For instance, listening to a Japanese speak English could be so clear of the difficulties (Kojima, 2007).
In conclusion, social psychology and educational psychology dictates that the acquisition of foreign language skills requires the mystery of cognitive factors that lead to anxiety. This is one of the ways the learner can listen and assimilate the foreign language better due to reduction of emotionality. Apart from reducing anxiety, the instructors and the learners should also work towards improving listening, which is a vital aspect in understanding language from different parts of the world. All these aspects need to be followed in order to reduce the stress involved in foreign language acquisition and improve the cognitive learning capacity of the leaner (Mills, 2013).
References
Chan, W. M., Chin, K. N., Nagami, M., & Suthiwan, T. (2011). Media in Foreign Language
Teaching and Learning. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Dogil, G., & Reiterer, S. M. (2006). Language Talent and Brain Activity. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter.
Huang, J. (2012). Overcoming Anxiety in Foreign Language Classrooms. New York: Nova
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Kojima, E. (2007). Factors Associated with Second Language Anxiety in Adolescents from
Different Cultural Backgrounds. Michigan: ProQuest.
Mercer, S., Ryan, S., & Williams, M. (2012). Psychology for Language Learning: Insights from
Research, Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mills, N. (2013). Bepress.com. Retrieved 12 thursday, 2013, from A reevaluation of the role of
anxiety: Self-Efficacy, anxiety and their relation to reading and listening proficiency:
http://works.bepress.com/nicole_mills/2/
Nakata, Y. (2006). Motivation and Experience in Foreign Language Learning. Bern: Peter Lang.
Piątkowska, K., & Kościałkowska-Okońska, E. (2013). Correspondences and Contrasts in
Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies. Chicago: Springer.
Schwarzer, D., Bloom, M., & Shono, S. (2006). Research as a Tool for Empowerment: Theory
Informing Practice. North Carolina: IAP.
Young, D. J. (1998). Affect in foreign language and second language learning: a practical guide
