Foreign language anxiety among Swedish lower and upper secondary school students : A case study

Sammanfattning: In classrooms all over the world, there are students who fear the attention of both teachers and peers alike. Anxiety is a cause for such fears and in foreign language classrooms it can be prevalent. Foreign language anxiety (FLA) is a concept developed by Horwitz et al (1986) to describe the unique anxiety that arises in a foreign language learning situation. Anxious students are less prone to use their target language and feel less motivated in their language studies, both of which have a negative effect on their learning. The aim of this study was to measure and compare anxiety levels among Swedish lower and upper secondary school students, identify major sources of anxiety and gain understanding of individuals’ perception of foreign language anxiety. 49 subjects from two classes participated in the study. Their anxiety was measured with the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitz et al (1986). Interviews were used to gain insight into the subjects’ perception of foreign language anxiety. The results showed that a majority of the subjects were anxious and that students in the lower secondary school class were more anxious than the upper secondary school class. The identified major sources of anxiety were teacher-induced anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and general anxiety.