EFL ANXIETY BASED ON THE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
http://anxietyclass.blogspot.com/
Abstract
The existence of learners’ anxiety in every EFL classroom impedes the
learners’ performance and academic achievement. Therefore, the teachers are
required to recognize it. This study intends to frame the anxiety symptoms, its
causal factors, as well as the strategy to cope with from the teachers’
perceptions. A case study of qualitative approach was chosen to analyze the transcribed
data from the semi-structured interview and was conducted face-to-face by
involving four teachers in four junior high schools. The finding indicates that
the indications of anxiety are different from each learner regarding the factor
influencing. The indications involve being silent, nervous, shy, frozen,
showing blank faces, stuttering, sweating, bowing their head, having low
confident and short focus, speaking with low volume, and facing the floor. The factors influenced are
the environment, competitive sense, and the lack of vocabularies. Motivation is
considered as the main solution for anxiety and followed by giving a reward,
praising, approaching chorally and individually, taking a deep breath, using
code-mixing and code-switching, arranging the seating, modifying the activities
and method, rough-tuning, and promoting interaction through groupings. The
strategy to be undertaken should consider the symptoms and the causal factors. Finally,
a continuation of the implementation of this study based on the deeper analysis
can be conducted with anxiety test.
Keywords:
anxiety, teacher’s perception, EFL, classroom management
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study
Using English communicatively can be very difficult and
challenging for some learners since they often feel anxious. Therefore, they
prefer to stay passive during the whole lesson. When the teacher forces them to
come forward, they will do it anxiously. This condition is usually experienced
by poor learners who do not have a good mastery of English. Moreover, the
unsupportive environment convinces them to stay passive. As an English teacher,
we cannot ignore this problem because it impedes their achievements
specifically the speaking skill. As the number of anxious learners grow up and
occur in every English class, it is compulsory to bring this problem to light. Therefore,
this study aims to investigate the anxiety phenomena based on the teachers’
perception towards the symptoms and the causal factors as well as how the
teachers deal with this situation.
Regarding to anxiety, numerous studies have been conducted
to investigate this problem (Anandari, 2015; Basic,
2011; Dobson, 2012; Hadziosmanovic, 2012; Hashempour & Mehrad, 2014;
Nadeem, Ali, Maqbool, & Zaidi, 2012; O, Mark, & Umudjere, 2016; Rezvan
Khoshlessan & Das, 2017; Shibli et al., 2015; Singh, 2015). Those prove that many teachers converge anxious
learners in the classes. The biggest problem is that anxiety impedes the
achievement. The more anxious they are, the lower achievement they get (Dobson, 2012; Nadeem,
Ali, Maqbool, & Zaidi, 2012; Singh, 2015, Anjaniputra, 2015). It is an obligation for the teachers to know the
indication and the reasons they are anxious. Therefore, they can choose the
appropriate technique to overcome it.
To support the existence of this
problem in EFL classroom, the researcher conducted a pre-observation in a
private junior high school in Surabaya as the preceding data. This observation
was conducted to strengthen the information that anxiety occured in every FL
class. The class was a narrow class which consisted of 36 students. From the
observation, it resulted that the activity for 90 minutes was predominated by
good learners as participants and the disruptive learners as trouble makers. There
were three learners who could be clearly seen as anxious learners. During the
lesson, they acted nervously and uncomfortably. The symptoms are bowing their
heads, daydreaming, avoiding eye contact with the teacher, pretending to write,
and being silent to avoid participating. This finding correlates with
Spencer-DuPont, DuPont, & DuPont (2003) in Cowden (2009, p. 3) that anxious learners will charge their head with worry
speculation. The allegation towards those three anxious learners was confirmed
by the teacher from the interview. The main causal factor was the unsupportive
environment. The disruptive learners often threw verbal bullying to them. This
finding correlates with Asif (2016, p. 12) who asserts that bullying influences the victim’s
achievement and grows negative feelings such as anxiety, solitude, truancy, and
other learning obstacles. Thus, they preferred to keep silent rather than being
humiliated.
Fortunately, the teacher recogized the existence of the anxious
learners. Then, she tried to manage them by engaging them in the activity and
conversation such as asking their opinions, checking their understanding,
asking their difficulties, praising them after participating, etc. Since the
teacher strove to involve them in the activity, most of her attention was
addressed to them. In short, the teacher put too much attention on activating
them than entangling all learners and creating more enthusiastic activities. Moreover,
the learners felt more anxious with the teacher’s attention.
Although the teachers recognize this problem, their
ability in managing this problem still does not effectively surmount it. Knowing
the symptoms and the factors will be helpful in selecting the solution. Relating
to this issue, the main solution to solve the problem is the teachers’ ability
to control the classroom through both the activity and the interaction. According to Gebhard (2009), the teachers’
ability regarding classroom management can be utilized to present an effective
environment through purposeful ways. Hall (2011) proposed clasroom management
as a skill to oversee the classroom flow through some techniques. Furthermore,
Brown (2001) and Harmer (2007b) suggested the teachers to master the variables
in order to know what kind of appropriate steps and action to be taken. Harmer
(2007b) served nine variables to be considered. Those are the teacher’s
performance and mobility, the use of the voice, communicating with the learners,
instructions, teacher talk and student talk, the role of mother tongue,
organizing the lesson stages, seating formation, and clustering the students
into some cliques. Those are the general techniques used by teachers to cope
with the anxiety problems. Also, some of those may become the strategies which
were taken by the teachers as the subject of this study to answer the third
research question.
1.2 Research
Questions
Regarding the anxiety problem that most teachers find and
the preceding observation presented about the existence of anxiety problem in
EFL classroom, the researcher conducted a study towards anxiety based on the
teachers’ perceptions and formulated the research questions of this study as
follows.
1.
What are the symptoms
shown by the anxious learners based on the teachers’ perception?
2.
What are the causal
factors of the learners’ anxiety based on the teachers’ perception?
3.
What strategies do
the teachers undertake to cope with the learners’ anxiety based on their
perception?
1.3 The Objective
of the Study
Regarding the title of this study EFL Anxiety based on the Teachers’ Perception and the research questions formulated, the aims of this study are:
1.
To uncover the learners’
anxiety symptoms based on the teachers’ perception
2.
To expose the causal
factors on the learners’ anxiety based on the teachers’ perception.
3.
To frame the
strategies done by the teachers to manage the learners’ anxiety based on their
perception.
1.4 The Scope of
the Study
In order to avoid the broader term of this study, the
scope of this study is provided. It is limited to investigate the three research
questions based on the teachers’ perception: the symptoms and the reasons for
the learners’ anxiety and the way the teachers overcome it.
1.5 Significance
of the Study
This study aims to frame the indication and the causal
factors of anxious learners from the teachers’ perception and how the teachers surmount
the problem of anxiety in the classroom as well. Hopefully, it can serve not
only additional information but also a meaningful contribution. It is also
expected to become a helpful guidance for the teachers related to overcoming the
relevant obstacle. Furthermore, the researcher expects that this study will
present additional information for the next researchers in conducting a
further, broader, and deeper study.
1.6 Definition
of Key Terms
To avoid misconception, some terms related to this study are
elucidated below.
1.
|
Anxiety
|
:
|
Uncomfortable
feeling where a person avoid being in the spotlight because of some
conditions such as low competence, negative perspective, and the unsupportive
environment (Anjaniputra, 2015)
|
2.
|
Classroom
Management
|
:
|
Teacher’s ability
to control the classroom through verbal interaction, gestures, and strategy
(Harmer, 2007b)
|
LITERATURE
REVIEW
2.1 Anxiety Symptoms
Most learners feel anxious in the classroom. Brosan et al. (2010, p. 1) defined anxiety as an innocuos yet a serious condition. They
classified the anxiety indications into four; mindset, feeling, actions, and
gestures (p. 6). The mindset refers to worry or negativity. They
speculate that there will be something bad happen. Feeling deals with their
expression such as afraid, jittery, confuse, and panicky. Behaviour and gesture
are the reflections of those. They can be seen by how uncomfortale they are at
that time. They will indicate through body language and facial expression such
as bowing the head, heartbeat, and trembling.
It is also supported by Twenge (2000, p. 11). Their feelings are the potrait of the environment. It
happens when they are in an uncomfortable situation such as attending a certain
lesson which they do not master well. Basic (2011, p. 6) also mentioned the symptoms of speaking anxiety.
Uncontrollable heartbeat, breath, irregular foot steps, and freezing in front
of audiences are impeding the learners to do well in presentation.
2.2 Cause of Anxiety
Generally, classroom participation increases the anxiety
level. It is supported by Cowden (2009, p. 2) that anxiety badly influences the learners’
accomplishment. He defined two factors of anxiety. The external factors involve
family and culture. Children who come from a divorced family often feel confuse
to express their feelings since they seldom interact with and talk to their
parents (Rezvan Khoshlessan &
Das, 2017, p. 6). The condition in their family threatens and fears them.
It effects their psychology and leads them to question who they are and how
important they are. On the other hand, some learners who come from a good
family also face this. The demand from their parents such as getting high
scores for a good job, burden them to do their best. They do not want to
disappoint their parents yet they are not good in that lesson. In fact, parents
often lead their children to the things that they are not interested in. Meanwhile,
the internal factors come from the learners’ motivation and confidence.
Brosan et al. (2010, p. 6) asserted that anxiety was the main problem of the
learners’ failure. It impeded their progress for it negatively influenced them.
They emphasized that it related to what the anxious people thought. It
reflected from their mindset. They thought that the situation was threatening
while it was not. This insecurity transformed into anxiety and would lead them
into silency and disappearing from the community or society. Thus, it could be
assumed that their negative mindset was the factor influenced. They tend to
think pessimistically and predict everything into a failure. This negative
mindset about being unable to do something reflected their feelings, effort and
the result. It was similar to worry which impeded the learners to do their
best.
It is compulsory to investigate the types of anxiety. Spielberger
(1966) distinguish trait and state anxiety. Trait anxiety deals with feeling
anxious in every situation or the person is vulnerable of anxiety. It relates
to genetic factor and their personality. However, state anxiety is more simple
for people only feel it in a certain situation. It relates to the environment
whether it is supportive or threatening. The main obstacle from the environment
is bullying. It causes an obvious and harmful impact towards the achievement (Kibriya, Xu, & Zhang,
2015, p. 4)
Bashfulness is considered as one factor. The students are
not confident to perform in front of many people. It is
found that mistake correction is avoided especially the bad ones (Anandari, 2015, p. 10;
Hadziosmanovic, 2012, p. 36; Lao, Akseer, Bosacki, & Coplan, 2013, p. 11). They do not want to get bad comments because they are
shy that all students recognize it.
2.3 Strategy to Solve
Anxiety
Nugraha (2016) found that anxiety negatively influence
the speaking performance and motivation. On the contrary, motivation positively
influence the speaking performance. Thus, motivation can be concluded as the
solution for anxiety. The teachers need to grow
positivity in their mind and direct the negativity into a great effort (Brosan et al., 2010, p.
28). Weiten and McCann (2007) in Cowden (2009, p. 6) suggest the teachers to
use the anxiety into supportive ways such as asking the other students to find
the strength of the presenter rather than pointing their weaknesses.
Since anxiety can be caused of the lack of vocabulary, Resmita
(2016) suggested the teachers to use code-switching and code mixing. She found
that this strategy was useful to attract them. It is bolstred by Suherdi (2017,
p. 38) that the use of L1 can be utilized as a link to connect to the L2. Also,
using simple common-used word should be relied as one of the strategy by the
teacher in order that they can get the meaning. It is called rough-tuning (Harmer,
2007b, p. 37).
2.4 Classroom
Management
Regarding to the internal factors mentioned by Cowden (2009), Harmer (2007b) proposed motivation building and
rapport. The teacher should formulate the defiance
degree that will help them overcome the anxiety step by step. The second is
affect regarding to the teachers’
attention. This part requires rapport to build their trust towards the teachers.
The teachers should convince them that the situation is safe. After
establishing rapport, the teachers can gain information of the anxiety factors.
Also, it is suggested to make a cheerful atmosphere so the students will enjoy
the activities. Harmer (2007b, p. 40) stated that it is compulsory for the
teachers to tell the learning objective in the beginning of the session and to
direct the students to review the whole lesson in the end. It intends to help
them to have an obvious overview about today’s activity. More importantly, the
topic for the upcoming lesson should also be stated in order they prepare the
material at home.
The other possible strategy is by organizing the activities
as proposed by Gebhard (2009, p.95). The anxious learners are suggested to work
with pairs or in groups. By using this model, the anxious learners will learn
from the other learners and it promotes quality interactions to minimize their
anxiety. The seating position can be modified by following the kind of
activities.
2.4 Previous
Related Research
In recent years, some related studies have been
established. The first related study was conducted by Singh (2015). This study investigated 500 learners of the final year
on under graduate study whose ages were between 19-22 years old. The aim is to
find the correlation of their anxiety towards the academic achievement. The
finding revealed that 113 learners with poor anxiety level clearly influenced
their academic achievement. The higher the anxiety, the lower the achievement.
It was also similar to the 260 learners with average anxiety level. However,
the anxiety of 127 learners with upper
level did not influence the academic achievement. Thus, the achievement was
directly proportional to the anxiety. Also, gender affected the result of the
academic anxiety and the achievement.
Nadeem, Ali, Maqbool,
& Zaidi (2012) conducted a research for 97 university learners of
Bahawalpur Pakistan. The objective of this study is to find out the influence
of anxiety towards the academic achievement through their IQ level. They
categorized the learners based on their IQ: 90-94, 95-99, and 100-104, and
their gender. There were 36 learners with low IQ level; 23 male and 13 female.
The average IQ level involve 37 learners; 25 male and 12 female, while 24
learners with high IQ level; 16 male and 8 female. The general findings
resulted that anxiety effected negatively to the learners’ academic
achievements for all categories. If the anxiety level is high, the academic
achievement is low. By defiding the subjects based on their gender, the result
showed a difference on male learners with low IQ (90-94). Alhough there was
found influence, yet is not high. On the other hand, the influences of anxiety
on the learners academic achievements, especially male learners with average
and high IQ and female learners with all IQ level, are high. In short, if the
anxiety level is low, the academic achievement is high.
The third related study was conducted by Anjaniputra
(2015) through qualitative and quantitave method design. This study was
addressed to tenth graders of two public senior high schools in urban area and
rural area in Sumedang. It investigated the problem, the reason, and the
solution of having anxiety and to compare the rural and urban shool learners on
their language anxiety and oral performance. There were sixty students
participated. The finding resulted that, first, the anxiety of each learner is
different from another. The environment and sensitivity are the two main
factors effected. Second, less preparation, the type of the classroom activity,
the learners’ characteristics, and worry of committing deviations were found as
the causal factors of being anxious. To minimize the symptomts, they used to
organize more, keep calm, have a good mindset, discuss with their friends, and do submission. The last, the location and
the quality of school and the degree of learners’ anxiety also influenced the
speaking performance.
2.5 Concluding
Remarks
The first part entitled introduction covers the
background of the study, research questions, the objectives of the study,
scope, siginifcance and the definition of the key terms. The second part is the
literature review which involves some related theories and previous researches
regarding to the related topic. It provides
the anxiety symptoms, its causal factors, the strategy to cope with, and
classroom management.
The following part is the research methodology which
involves the research design, data collection techniques including sites and
participants, intrumentation, procedure,
and data analysis. The next part is finding and discussion which presents the
data described and supported by related theories and studies. The last part is
conclusion and recommendation and references. In the end of the research,
appendices are attached; interview questions and the transcription.
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research
Design
The predicament of the anxiety inside the classroom can
only be described through words rather than numbers (Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen,
& Walker, 2010). Thus, this study is more appropriate to be framed under
qualitative approach rather than quantitative approach. Moreover, it is
categorized as a case study research which aim is to gain information related
to the current phenomena (Postlethwaite, 2015). Also, it is constructed to expose the cause of a
certain phenomena and how it is accomplished (Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison, 2007). The other purpose is to explain the phenomena in
particular (Ary et al., 2010, p. 29). In conclusion, it is accordance with this study which
aims are to investigate the symptoms and the causal factors of the learners’
anxiety from the teachers’ perception and how the teachers surmount this
problem.
3.2 Data
Collection
3.2.1 Research
Site and Participants
A. Research Site
Before taking the data for this study, the researcher did
a preliminary observation on 12th October 2017 to have an overview
towards the symptoms of the learners’ anxiety. It was conducted in one
classroom which consisted of 36 students in a private junior high school in
Surabaya. Also, the researcher gained some information about the common anxious
behaviour and the techniques used by the teacher in managing the classroom from
an interview.
This present study involved four junior high schools as
the field of this study. All of them are located in districts in Pamekasan and
Sumenep Regency. The first two schools (S1 and S2) are located in Sumenep
Regency with A accreditation while the rest (S3 and S4) are located in
Pamekasan Regency with B accreditation. The school accreditation and location
do not influence the result because the focus of this study is the teachers’
perception towards the three research questions.
B. Participants
There were 4 teachers participated in this study; two
female teachers (F1 and F2) and two male teachers (M1 and M2). They were
selected because they had different teaching experiences including the length
of teaching and the case of anxious learners in the classroom. M1 has been
teaching in S1 for 3 years and M2 has been teaching for one year in S3. F1 has
been teaching for three years in S2 while F2 has been teaching in S4 for 4
years.
As a consideration, junior high school students were
elected since they were in the transition phase from young learners into
teenagers. It is called adolescence (Harmer, 2007b, hal. 14) . Moreover, in the teaching and learning activity, the
teachers did not encourage them about comprehension anymore yet participation
(Schunk, Pintrich, and Meece, 2010, p. 365).
Therefore, the possibility of anxiety case is higher since this becomes
the first step for them.
3.2.2
Instrumentation
Ary, Jacobs, & Sorensen (2010, p.29) proposed several
methods in obtaining information. This study utilized face-to-face
semi-structured interview which is intended to answer the three research
questions about the anxiety symptomps, the causal factors, and strategies to
cope with based on the teachers’ perceptions. Interview was chosen in order to
collect the information through a direct interaction between the researcher and
the informants (Ary, Jacob, & Sorensen, 2010, p.379). The semi-structured interviews
were chosen in order to obtain more information by presenting additional
question related to the unexpected response (Given, 2008, p. 62). Ary, Jacob, & Sorensen (2010, p.379) considered
that face-to-face interviews gave more benefits than telephone interviews such
us building a rapport and obtaining unspoken information from body language nad
face expressions. Five self-construct questions were formulated based on the
information in the preliminary data and were developed from relevant theories.
Those were addressed to the respondents to answer the three reasearch questions
of this study.
3.2.3 Procedure
Before conducting an interview for the four participants,
the researcher conducted a pre-observation to obtain some information regarding
to the anxiety in junior high school on October 12th 2017. As stated in
syllabus and the lesson plan, the teaching and learning process should be held
for 80 minutes. In fact, it was 70 minutes because of some obstacles. However,
it did not influence the process and the result. Based on the activity inside
the classroom, she obtained information about the existence of anxiety problem,
its symptoms, its causal factors, and a few strategy to overcome it. To
strengthen the information, a semi-structured interview was conducted. It was
done two days after because the researcher still formulated the questions
regarding to the observation result. It was conducted on October 14th 2017 addressed
to the teacher in the preliminary observation. Then, she concluded that anxiety
case appeared in this class which was chosen randomly and obtained information
about the sympomps, the causal factors, and the strategies to cope with.
Since the focus of this study was the teachers’
perception, the researcher did not conduct an observation. The research
questions could directly be answered through their konwledge and experiences. Therefore,
interview is the only instrument used. The second interview was conducted on
20th – 21st October 2017 which aim was to obtain information from the four
respondents to answer the research questions. Thus, this is presented with a certain
intention (Burgess, 1984, p.5 in Heigham and Croker, 2009, p.183). A
semi-structured interview was chosen because it is considered flexible. There
were five formulated questions yet the researcher can give additional question
towards the unexpected responses given (Given, 2008, p. 62). The interview was recorded and transcribed to be
presented in the result and discussion part.
3.3 Data Analysis
The analysis is based on the data from the interview. Since
qualitative design was chosen, the analysis was done through description.
First, after formulating the questions of this study, the researcher developed
the five semi-structured interview questions addressed to the informants. The
researcher conducted the interviews to the four teachers and those were
recorded. Secondly, the recordings were transcribed descripively and organized into
some classifications. They were analyzed tbased on the information required
related to the ansiety simptomps, its factors and the strategy to cope wit. Finally,
some related researches and theories were presented to strengthen the findings.
FINDING AND
DISCUSSION
This study aims to explore the teachers’ perception
towards the axiety symptoms of EFL learners, its factors, and the strategy to
surmount it. This study formulates three research quetions and this chapter
presents the data obtained from interview to answer them. The research
questions are: what are the symptoms shown by the anxious learners based on the
teachers’ perception? what are the causal factors of the learners’ anxiety
based on the teachers’ perception? and what strategies do the teachers
undertake to cope with the learners’ anxiety based on their perception?
To support the data, the interviewer formulated the first
two questions by asking the length of teaching experience and the number of
anxious learners that the interviewees had. All of them stated that the number
is different in each class. Then, it is followed by the teachers’ judgement
towards the anxious learners based on the symptons shown. M1 is a male teacher
who teaches in a school with A accreditation. M2 is a male teacher who teaches
in school with B accrediation. F1 is a female teacher who teaches in a school
with A accreditation. F2 is female teacher who teaches in school with B
accrediation
What are the symptoms shown by the anxious learners based
on the teachers’ perception?
The following data are the responses regarding to the
indication shown by anxious learners. The symptoms are similar to some previous
researches and the preceding observation. The symptoms can be observed through
their expression, voice tone, reaction to the environment, and body language.
The responses are presented below.
M1 :
|
There are some categories because they have different reason become
anxiety. First, they are shy and anti-sosial. It means that they don’t want
to speak at all. Second, they are not self-confident so they refuse if the
teacher ask them to come forward or to read the coversation in their
textbook. Then, a student with special need. It is very difficult to trigger
him. He has a short focus and difficult to concentrate on my lesson. I ever
watched a video that this is called autism and they are not good in language
but they are strong in numbers like mathematics. The last is they don’t know
well about English. So, they keep silent from beginning until the end.
|
M2 :
|
They are sweating
and frozen like questioning themselves about what they must do now. We can
see from their faces, blank, and the stutter.
|
F1 :
|
They keep silent and have blank face. They cannot respond to the
instruction. If the teacher ask them to answer a question, they always give
excuses and have stomachache. And they are late to submit the task and cheat their
friends’ task. Most of them sit in the back row and some refuse if the
teacher ask them to move to the front row.
|
F2 :
|
If the teacher ask them to come forward, they are afraid. and also the
teacher cannot hear their voices. They are sweating, blank, and face the
floor. They often do something different from what I ask. There is also a
very shy student. She commonly holds the teacher’s hand in front of the
class.
|
Being silent is the
most common indication of being anxious that was found by some researchers like
(Basic, 2011). She added avoidance as another factor. The students
will avoid to use the target language communicatively. Moreover, evading eye
contact and stammering are the similar symptoms mentioned by Hashempour & Mehrad (2014,
p. 119). Also, F2 mentioned a student with trait anxiety which was also found by
Barlian (2014) and in accordance with Rachman's (2013) and Spielberger’s (1966) theory. The similar symptoms
were also found by O, Mark, & Umudjere (2016,
p. 2) such as having stomachache, feeling afraid,
perspiring, and forgetting what they intend to convey. Also, Anandari (2015, p. 10) stated that they were
abashed and inconvenient for being the center of attention.
What are the causal factors of the learners’ anxiety
based on the teachers’ perception?
The following responses are addressed to answer the
second research question. However, the researcher presents three of four
responses because the M1’s response is merged with the first response. The M2’s
response is influenced by the environment specifically Madura. Generally, the
anxious learners avoid being corrected and afraid to commit deviations while
they are performing.
M2 :
|
Since Madura is
famous with its religiousness, some students stay in Islamic boarding house. They
use foreign languag like Arabic and English for their daily communication. I
think that the anxious students are afraid to make mistakes because the
students who stay in boarding house will find the mistakes. And some of them
often humiliate their friends.
|
F2 :
|
They live in a
place where English is a very foreign language. They just study it in the
classroom with their English teachers only for one or two meetings a week.
The class also consist of many students and very difficult for the teacher to
chek them one by one. So I think it’s not effective to make them understand.
|
The
environment as a factor of anxiety was also resulted in some previous studies
both the classroom environment and the cultural environment (Basic, 2011;
Hadziosmanovic, 2012; Rezvan Khoshlessan & Das, 2017). The people arround them
also take roles in creating anxiety such as the boarding house students who
underestimate other students. It affects the confidence and leads into silence.
Competitiveness seems to be the reason stated by M2 (Bekleyen, 2004; Ranka,
2016). On the other hand, they can reduce the
anxiety by supporting and helping the anxious learners to overcome the fear and
worry such as giving verbal motivation and minimizing the intimidation. It will
be helpful if people in the family and society environment are well-educated to
habitualize the learners with English.
F1 :
|
They are lack of
vocabularies and don’t understand the English structure.
|
Liu (2007) in Anandari (2015, p. 9) found that the minimum number of vocabularies memorized
became a reason for anxiety. It makes them anxious because they do not memorize
many English words.
What strategies do the teachers undertake to cope with
the learners’ anxiety based on their perception?
The following are the responses towards the strategies to
surmount the learners’ anxiety. Based on their perceptions, most of the
respondents considered motivation as the main solution to appropriately be
chosen. The way to use motivation is not by pep-talk yet implicitly through
variegated activities, compliments, and reward.
M1 :
|
For the shy and anti-social student, the teacher must approach them
chorally and individually. For the unconfident student, give them reward
everytime they participate like say “oh, that’s good.” “That’s amazing.”
“Wow, that’s great.” “Good job, boy/girl.” The teacher can use star stickers
and give it to the students who participate and do everything well. It really
motivate them because they want more stickers. For low student, the same
strategy can be done like rewarding and approaching. For the autist child, it
will be better if the teachers don’t force him that much because I’m afraid that it
will give him pressure. So, give extra attention to him like come into his
desk and ask ‘do you have any question?’ and explain the material
individually.
|
M2 :
|
Of course the
teacher must motivate them to relax and take a breath. Tell them that
participation is very good to get good scores. The most important thing is
they participate. He can use bahasa daerah or bahasa Indonesia so they
understand the instruction. .... Then, tell them about the lesson for next meeting
so they will prepare well at home.
|
F1 :
|
Ask them to move to
the first row and conduct interactional activities like game problem solving
and debate to motivate them to speak up. Then, double check their work and
assist until they do understand the material.
|
Generally, all
respondents consider motivation as one of the strategies. This is in line with
Harmer’s (2007b) and Gebhard’s (2009) theories. Rapport is emphasized by M1.
Moreover, M2’s response is similar to what Hashempour & Mehrad (2014) suggested. The teacher should ask the learners to calm
down and direct the worry into motivation. It relates to Brosan et al. (2010, p. 7)’s suggestion to cope with the anxiety indication. Taking
a breath is very important to help them control their feeling and reduce their
nervous. Most of people cannot control what they say and do when they are
nervous. Worsely, they forget what to say. The correct breathing in regard with
this phenomena is by inhaling the oxygen through the nose and exhaling it
through the mouth. Also, teacher’s awareness is emphasized to recognize the
indication in order to select the appropriate strategy. Since the factor
mentioned through F1’s perspective is the lack of vocabulary, she argued that
the use of code-switching and code-mixing during the lesson motivated the
students and they were more excited with the bilingual class (Resmita, 2016).
In addition, the results reflected a continuation of Barlian’s research (2014).
The teachers are suggested to build the learners’ motivation through their
confidence. They believed that motivation is the basis of successful learning.
The following responses are bout the strategies to
surmount the learners’ anxiety. The response from F2 is more detail and the
interviewer gave additional question. From the respondents’ answer, classifying
the learners based on the factors is necessary to know the right strategy.
F2 :
|
“They can use songs to teach. Any song. They can make the song to make a
happy situation. They can also use GTM (Grammar Translation Method) because the
students don’t know many vocabularies. Give them a list of vocabularies in
the beginning and use it in sentences. Or give it in the end of the meeting
and use it in the next meeting.”
“For students who do not understand the instruction, First the teacher say
the instruction in English. She must use common and simple words. Then ask
them whether they undertand or not. The most tricky question is “Do you have
any question?” and they always say yes. It means that they don’t understand
and they always respond all question with ‘yes’. So, ask the smart student to
translate it in bahasa indonesia and ask the others to restate. And remind
them the points.”
“For shy students At the beginning, don’t ask her to participate
individually. Divide them into some groups and they must make a dialog for
example. Then, every member must have a turn. The teacher ask all the members
to come forward. I think this is the best way to avoid her feeling
intimidated.”
|
The responses above
are in line with Harmer’s theory (2007b) about a cheerful atmosphere, the way
the teacher talks to the students especially rough-tuning, giving instruction, planning
the material stages, and grouping the students. This theory is supported by Furrer, Skinner, &
Pitzer (2014). Grouping promotes interaction and is expected to motivate each other. The
respondent also stated some considerations in doing those such as the learners’
characteristics and the factors.
CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION
Considering the existence of learners’ anxiety problem in
every EFL classroom, the teachers’ awareness are emphasized in order to
surmount this problem. The importance of overcoming it will influence the
learners’ achievements and performance. As stated in the introductory part,
this study is purposed to frame the three questions from the teachers’
perceptions. Those are the anxiety symptoms, its causal factors or the reason,
and the strategy to cope with it. The finding indicated that the indications of
anxiety are different from one learner to another. It depends on the reasons or
the factor influencing. The indications involve being silent, nervous, shy,
frozen, showing blank faces, stuttering, sweating, bowing their head, having low
confident and short focus, speaking with low volume, and facing the floor. The factors influenced are
the environment such as the family and classroom, competitive sense, and the
lack of vocabularies. Based on the teachers’ perception, the strategy to be
undertaken should consider the symptoms and the causal factors. Motivation is
considered as the main solution for anxiety and followed by giving reward,
praising, approaching chorally and individually, taking a deep breath, using
code-mixing and code-switching, arranging the seating, modifying the activities
and method, rough-tuning, and promoting interaction through groupings.
Then, the researcher presents two recommendation for EFL
teachers and the next researchers. For EFL teachers, it is suggested to pay
anttention to the anxious learners because most of poor learners are the
anxious ones. Moreover, their existences are often unrecognizable because of
their passiveness and silence. Therefore, the teachers should know the symptoms
and the reasons of being anxious to decide the appropriate strategy. For the
next researchers, it would be better if they make a continuation of this study
in reality such as overcoming the learners’ anxiety based on the real
situation. It can be conducted more detail by applying anxiety test.
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https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.79.6.1007
APPENDICES
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1.
How long have you
been teaching?
2.
How many anxious
learners do you have in 7th grade?
3.
Based on your
perception, how can a teacher know that a certain student is anxious? What are
the indications?
4.
Based on your
opinion, what makes a student anxious?
5.
What strategy should
be taken by the teacher to handle the anxious learners?
INTERVIEW
TRANSCRIPTION (Question and Answer)
I is as abbreviation of interviewer and R is an
abbreviation of respondent.
Male Teacher 1
(M1)
I
|
:
|
How long have you
been teaching?
|
R
|
:
|
It’s about three
years
|
I
|
:
|
How many anxious
learners do you have in 7th grade?
|
R
|
:
|
I have 3 – 7
anxious students in every class.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
perception, how can a teacher know that a certain student is anxious? What
are the indications?
|
R
|
:
|
There are some
categories because they have different reason become anxiety. First, they are
shy and anti-sosial. It means that they don’t want to speak at all. Second,
they are not self-confident so they refuse if the teacher ask them to come
forward or to read the coversation in their textbook. Then, a student with
special need. It is very difficult to trigger him. He has a short focus and
difficult to concentrate on my lesson. I ever watched a video that this is
called autism and they are not good in language but they are strong in
numbers like mathematics. The last is they don’t know well about English. So,
they keep silent from beginning until the end.
|
I
|
:
|
What strategy
should be taken by the teacher to handle the anxious learners?
|
R
|
:
|
For the shy and
anti-social student, the teacher must approach them chorally and
individually. For the unconfident student, give them reward everytime they
participate like say “oh, that’s good.” “That’s amazing.” “Wow, that’s
great.” “Good job, boy/girl.” The teacher can use star stickers and give it
to the students who participate and do everything well. It really motivate
them because they want more stickers. For low student, the same strategy can
be done like rewarding and approaching. For the autist child, it will be
better if the teachers don’t force him
that much because I’m afraid that it will give him pressure. So, give extra
attention to him like come into his desk and ask ‘do you have any question?’
and explain the material individually.
|
Male Teacher 2 (M2)
I
|
:
|
How long have you
been teaching?
|
R
|
:
|
I have been
teaching here for 1 year.
|
I
|
:
|
How many anxious
learners do you have in 7th grade?
|
R
|
:
|
About 7 children
per class.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
perception, how can a teacher know that a certain student is anxious? What
are the indications?
|
R
|
:
|
They are sweating
and frozen like questioning themselves about what they must do now. We can
see from their faces, blank, and the stutter.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
opinion, what makes them anxious?
|
R
|
:
|
Since Madura is
famous with its religiousness, some students stay in Islamic boarding house.
They use foreign languag like Arabic and English for their daily
communication. I think that the anxious students are afraid to make mistakes
because the students who stay in boarding house will find the mistakes. And
some of them often humiliate their friends.
|
I
|
:
|
What strategy
should be taken by the teacher to handle the anxious learners?
|
R
|
:
|
Of course the
teacher must motivate them to relax and take a breath. Tell them that
participation is very good to get good scores. The most important thing is
they participate. He can use bahasa daerah or bahasa Indonesia so they
understand the instruction. .... Then,
tell them about the lesson for next meeting so they will prepare well
at home.
|
Female Teacher 1 (F1)
I
|
:
|
How long have you
been teaching?
|
R
|
:
|
Three years
|
I
|
:
|
How many anxious
learners do you have in 7th grade?
|
R
|
:
|
In class A, there
are 2 students. Class B 3 students. Class C 3 students and Class D 3
students.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
perception, how can a teacher know that a certain student is anxious? What
are the indications?
|
R
|
:
|
They keep silent
and have blank face. They cannot respond to the instruction. If the teacher
ask them to answer a question, they always give excuses and have stomachache.
And they are late to submit the task and cheat their friends’ task. Most of
them sit in the back row and some refuse if the teacher ask them to move to
the front row.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
opinion, what makes a student anxious?
|
R
|
:
|
They are lack of
vocabularies and don’t understand the English structure.
|
I
|
:
|
What strategy
should be taken by the teacher to handle the anxious learners?
|
R
|
:
|
Ask them to move to
the first row and conduct interactional activities like game problem solving
and debate to motivate them to speak up. Then, double check their work and
assist until they do understand the material.
|
I
|
:
|
If the teacher
conduct debate while they are lack of vocabularies, how can they speak and
convey their ideas?
|
R
|
:
|
Yes, it’s little
bit difficult and they use many codemixing but I keep using this strategy because
they are very anthusiastic in arguing.
|
I
|
:
|
Arguing is not only
speaking but also giving their logical opinion. In this case, smart students
are good. How do the teacher handle the smart ones so they will not
predominate the activities?
|
R
|
:
|
Yes, in fact the
smart students will dominate but I control whose turn to speak. So they won’t
dominate the whole sessions.
|
Female Teacher 2 (F2)
I
|
:
|
How long have you
been teaching?
|
R
|
:
|
Already four years.
|
I
|
:
|
How many anxious
learners do you have in 7th grade?
|
R
|
:
|
Most of my students
are anxious. Almost a half.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
perception, how can a teacher know that a certain student is anxious? What
are the indications?
|
R
|
:
|
If the teacher ask
them to come forward, they are afraid. and also the teacher cannot hear their
voices. They are sweating, blank, and face the floor. They often do something
different from what I ask. There is also a very shy student. She commonly
holds the teacher’s hand in front of the class.
|
I
|
:
|
Based on your
opinion, what makes them anxious?
|
R
|
:
|
They live in a
place where English is a very foreign language. They just study it in the
classroom with their English teachers only for one or two meetings a week.
The class also consist of many students and very difficult for the teacher to
chek them one by one. So I think it’s not effective to make them understand.
|
I
|
:
|
What about the shy
girl?
|
R
|
:
|
I think she is a
kind of natural shy girl. Other teachers tell me that she does the same in
their classes. When I ask her friends, they tell me that she does not like to
be exposed. She prefers to listen and read than speak in front of many
people. In my opinion, she has a family problem. Her parents divorced when
she was child and now she lives with her grandmother. Maybe it makes her
become introvert.
|
I
|
:
|
What strategy
should be taken by the teacher to handle the anxious learners?
|
R
|
:
|
They can use songs
to teach. Any song. They can make the song to make a happy situation. They
can also use GTM (Grammar Translation Method) because the students don’t know
many vocabularies. Give them a list of vocabularies in the beginning and use
it in sentences. Or give it in the end of the meeting and use it in the next
meeting.
|
I
|
:
|
What about the
students who do something different from your instruction?
|
R
|
:
|
For students who do
not understand the instruction, First the teacher say the instruction in
English. She must use common and simple words. Then ask them whether they
undertand or not. The most tricky question is “Do you have any question?” and
they always say yes. It means that they don’t understand and they always
respond all question with ‘yes’. So, ask the smart student to translate it in
bahasa indonesia and ask the others to restate. And remind them the points
|
I
|
:
|
What about the shy
girl?
|
R
|
:
|
For shy students, at
the beginning, don’t ask her to participate individually. Divide them into
some groups and they must make a dialog for example. Then, every member must
have a turn. The teacher ask all the members to come forward. I think this is
the best way to avoid her feeling intimidated.
|
.
Research-based Paper
Scoring Rubric
Student’s
Name : Fani Puspita Utami
Student’s
Number : 1707116
Topic : Classroom Management – EFL Anxiety based on the Teachers’
Perceptions
ASPECTS
|
CONTENTS
|
SCORE
|
YOURS
|
Abstract
Should
not more be than 150 words
|
Burning issues
Objectives
Methodology
Findings
Conclusion & recommendation
Sub Total
|
1
1
2
2
1
7
|
|
A.
Introduction
|
Burning issues
Objectives of the research
A brief theoretical foundation
Relevant previous research
Thesis statement
Sub Total
|
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
7
|
|
B.
Literature Review
|
Recent publication journal and book
Sub Total
|
1
2
2
1
6
|
|
C.
Research Methodology
|
1. Design/Research Methods
2. Data collection (sample,
instrumentation, procedure)
a. Sample
b. Instrumentation
c. Data collection procedure
3. Data analysis
Sub Total
|
1
3
1
5
|
|
D.
Findings and Discussions
|
Sub Total
|
2
2
1
1
6
|
|
Citation
and Mechanic
|
Appropriateness of quoting and mechanic
|
5
|
|
Language
|
Grammar
Coherence
Sub Total
|
2
2
4
|
|
TOTAL SCORE
|
40
|
||
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