Foreign Language Anxiety Among Prospective Language Teachers
Foreign Language Anxiety Among Prospective Language Teachers

Summary/Abstract: Considerable research on language anxiety has accumulated over the last 30 years indicating negative correlations between language anxiety and target language performance and overall success achieved in the target language. However, very little research has been conducted on teacher language anxiety. This study investigates the causes and effects of language anxiety experienced by anxious non-native student teachers. The findings indicate the participants experience feelings of anxiety due to their fear of negative evaluation and concern over errors. Language anxiety also appears to have a number of negative impacts on foreign language instruction which have not been investigated before such as teachers’ avoiding speaking the target language and teachers’ reluctance to use classroom activities that require spontaneous and active target language use. Recommendations for helping student teachers overcome potential feelings of foreign language anxiety are made as well as recommendations for researchers interested in conducting future studies on teacher foreign language anxiety.

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