Name: Bushra Arshad

Roll No: 4037

Class: BS English Applied Linguistics

Submitted to: Dr. Muhammad Islam

Topic: Exploring Anxiety Level of English Language Learners at Secondary

Level
INTRODUCTION
The history of the English language began with migration of the Jutes, Angles and Saxons from
Germany and Denmark to Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Norman conquest of 1066
brought many French words into English. Greek and Latin words began to enter it in the 15th
century, and Modern English language is usually dated from 1500. English language belongs to
the Germanic language branch of the Indo-European language family. It is widely spoken on six
continents. It is the primary language of U.S, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland
and various Caribbean and pacific island notions, it also an official language of Pakistan. It is
one of the most widely spoken language in the world (approximately 1.5 billion speakers),
mother tongue of more than 350 million people and the most widely taught foreign language.
English language luxuriates its prestige as a broadly spoken language and an official language of
Pakistan. It is popular as a medium of policies beyond educational institutes since anxiety
regards the learning process. Consequently, it has been widely researched in the world and seems
under researched in Pakistani context. Thus, the prime aim of this research is to explore the
factors that cause of anxiety level of English language learning at school level.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study will indicate the anxiety level of students at learning the English language which is a
foreign/second language in Pakistan. It will focus on the factors which contribute to anxiety level
of students “fear of making mistakes”, “ fear of negative evaluation”, and “ lack of vocabulary
knowledge”.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The main purpose of this research is to addresses the levels of anxiety associates with factors in
the schools, level of academic achievements, learning and speaking skills, reading and writing
skills, and an exploratory factors contribute to the anxiety levels among students. This research
paper recognizes the complexity of anxiety level of English language learning.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study aims to answer the following questions
1. Do students learning English language at schools face anxiety?
2. Are there any differences among boys and girls about English learning anxiety?
3. What is the dominant factor of language anxiety among students in learning English
language?

HYPOTHESIS
The following hypothesis was raised:
The factors that contribute to the anxiety among school students and differences (of age, gender)
about learning English language.

LITERATURE REVIEW
This section of the research talks about the anxiety as a fragment of emotions with foreign
language learning, the role of anxiety and anxiety-reducing strategies. Furthermore, this will
indicate the brief description of the teaching and learning skills of English language at schools in
Pakistan.
Research on anxiety level and language learning is not entirely linked with psychological
framework; it also presupposes other emotional/affective factors contribute with foreign
language learning includes a variety of socio-psychological constructs such as attitude, aptitude,
intelligence and anxiety.
Aragão (2011) looked into the relationship between the anxiety-provoking beliefs and emotions
with foreign language learning. He argued that the emotions of fear, embarrassment, pride and
self-esteem and inhibition are affected by the beliefs of students’ self-concept. For instance, the
fear of feeling embarrassment or doing mistake when speaking in the class may be due to the
beliefs that class fellows will criticize him/her or laugh at his performance(304). Aragão
concluded that this link plays a fundamental role in the way students find themselves in the
foreign language and their behavior in learning environment. Nicolson and Adams (2008) went
in line with Aragão’ conclusion assuming that the learner past experience at learning decides the
pre-understandings like perceiving the teacher as an authority figure, oneself as a passive
receptor and the classroom as a scary place. They entrenched that the pre-understanding intensify
the level of anxiety.
Nicolson and Adams (2011) found that the facilitative and inhibiting factors (of anxiety) that can
classroom either a solace or an obstacle course. They acknowledged that the students who refrain
in minimizing their emotions and fears found speaking in the classroom unavoidable and
suffocating. In accord to the classroom observation over a decade, Adams and Margaret (2012,
1) concluded that “discomfort in the classroom arose because of what students were asked to do,
how they were asked to do or who they had to do with it.”
Horwitz and Cope (1986), identified that the foreign language anxiety as a situation-specific
anxiety construct that is autonomous of other types of anxiety and who also contributed to a valid
and measurement of learner anxiety in the foreign language classroom known as The Foreign
Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. Foreign language anxiety is a complex intricate
phenomenon that has various causes. The primary sources of anxiety concluded by Horwitz and
Cope (1986) are communication apprehension (fear of communicating with other people), fear of
negative evaluation and fear of failure from performance anxiety stemming.
Young (1991, 1994) indicated the six interrelated sources of language anxiety that arise from
three aspects such as the learner (personal anxiety as well as learner’s beliefs about the
language), the teacher (the instructor’s belief about language teaching) and the instructional
practices (classroom procedures and language testing).
Palacios (1998) discussed about the perception of the teacher’s support and help toward the
students. According to Palacios, a factor which is typically associated with level (higher or
lower) of anxiety that how much teacher is friendly with students and his interests towards them.
Maclntyre and Gardner (1991, 112) described the foreign language learner who as an individual
perceives uncomfortable in the class, who withdraws from voluntary participation, who feels
pressure not to make mistakes and unwilling to try uncertain linguistics forms. Other empirical
researches marked out the anxious student who seems less willing to participate in learning
activities and has less performance than non-anxious students.
In the Pakistani context, the parallel system of education becomes a crucial variable for research
in English second language anxiety. Adeel’s (2011) investigation in anxiety provoking factors in
Pakistani English learners revealed that self-perception of students towards the language and
strict environment of the classrooms intensify the anxiety level who came from Urdu medium
primary schools have a lack of confidence because the substandard way of English has been
taught to them. Another research of Awan (2010) too observed that foreign language learning
anxiety can produce many problems in acquisition and retention of language. The problem is
further exasperated that a majority of students who make transition from Urdu medium to
English medium at secondary or higher secondary educational institutions increases the level of
their anxiety.

METHODOLOGY
This part will present the methodology being used for this research paper. This will also pertain
to research design, population and sampling, data collection procedure, and data analysis. This
research was conducted to explore the anxiety level among secondary level English language
learners.

RESEARCH METHODLOGY
The research method designs for this topic is mixed method approach. In this research both
method quantitative approach as well as qualitative approach.
1. Quantitative Approach
2. Qualitative Approach
Survey research design was also carry out for this research. According to Creswell (2002) “survey
research designs are procedures in quantitative research in which investigators administrator a
survey to a sample ought to entire population of people to describe the attitudes /opinions
/behavior or characteristics of the population”(p. 376).

POPULATION
The participants of the research will be secondary school students, both female and male at
public sector schools, Lahore. The average age of the students will be 15 years. These students
will be a mixed ability group with English medium education till middle and Urdu medium
educational background.
SAMPLING
The samples for this research designs will be taken from the survey of few classes at public
sector schools. A survey paper full of questionnaire will be giving to the students and will make
them assure that it is not their assessment of English proficiency and the aim of the research only
to improve the teaching skills in the institution and make the aura of the classrooms comfortable
for the foreign language learners.

DATA COLLECTION
The data will be collected from teachers and students through interviews, observations and
questionnaires. The research will use the best policy for the research in order to collect the pure
and authentic data.

DATA ANALYSIS
Data collected from interviews, surveys and observation will help to make questionnaires. Data
will analyze by SPSS for statistical observation. This method will help to understand the factors
that contribute to the anxiety level among secondary students.

REFERENCES
1. Aragão, R.2011. “Beliefs and Emotions in Foreign Language Learning.” System
39(3):302-313.
2. Nicolson, M., and H. Adams. 2008. “Travelling in Space and Encounters of the Third
Kind: Distance Language Learner Negotiation of Speaking Activities.” Innovation in
Language Learning and Teaching 2(2): 105-116.
3. Horwitz, E.k., M. B. Horwitz, and J. Cope. 1986. “Foreign Language Classroom
Anxiety.” Modern Language Journal 70 (2):125-132.
4. Young, D.J. 1991. “Creating a Low-Anxiety Classroom Environment: What Does
Language Anxiety Research Suggest?” The Modern Language Journal 75(4): 426-437.
5. Young, D.J. 1994. “New Directions in Language Anxiety Research.” In Faces in a
Crowd: The Individual Learner in Multisection Courses, edited by C.A. Klee, 3-46.
Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.
6. Palacios, L.M. 1998. “Foreign Language Anxiety and Classroom Environment: A Study
of Spanish University Students.” Unpublished doctoral diss., The University of Texas,
Austin, TX.
7. Maclntyre, P.D., and R.C. Gardner. 1991. “Methods and Results in the Study of Anxiety
and Language Learning: A review of the Literature.” Language Learning 41 (1):85-117.
8. Adeel, A. (2011). A study of anxiety among the graduation learners of English as a
foreign language.
9. Awan, R., Azher, M., Anwar, M. N., and Naz, A. (2010). An investigation of foreign
language classroom anxiety and its relationship with students” achievement. Journal of
College Teaching and Learning. 7,(11), 33-40.
10. Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating
quantitative. New Jersey: Upper Saddle River.