Language researchers and educators are concerned with reducing students’ anxiety. Rigorous studies showed that language achievement precedes anxiety and not the other way around. Accordingly, a new experimental study was conducted where two groups of university students in English courses (experimental N = 66 and controlled N = 77) were followed over one semester at three time points. Students in the experimental group received a teaching method that focused on increasing their vocabulary knowledge. The Short Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (S-FLCAS) was used, and students’ achievement was measured via the English vocabulary knowledge test (VLT). The conditional latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) was used to study the effect of the grouping variable (experiment vs control) on the decline of anxiety. The analysis shows that the effect of the grouping variable was significant, indicating that the experimental group exhibited a significant decline in their anxiety over time relative to the control group. A key strength of the present study is that anxiety was reduced without implementing any anxiety-reduction strategies but through improving students’ language-related skills. Findings support the idea that increasing students’ language skills can lower their sense of anxiety. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers should (1) Increase students’ exposure to the language to an optimally challenging level, (2) allow students to try the language while acknowledging mistakes that are inherent in the learning process, and (3) accept feelings of anxiety at early stages of learning.

Authors:
Abdullah Alamer, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Abdullah Alamer is an Associate Professor of the Psychology of Language Learning at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. Earned his PhD from UNSW, Sydney. He is listed among the top 2% of scientists on Stanford/Elsevier's ranking.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-abdullah-alamer-9055b6176/

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abdullah-Alamer-2

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