Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in the English Classroom: an Implementation of Alleviating Strategies to Reduce Oral FLA

Abstract

It is a fact that learning a Foreign Language (FL) has become a main goal among individuals either as a communicative need or because of particular motives as for example academic purposes. Unfortunately, the process of learning an FL may be affected by different factors. Indeed, many people claim to experience a mental block in their attempts to perform successfully in an FL (Horwitz et al., 1986). This apprehension, nervousness or feeling of tension is known as Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), one of the subcategories within the affective domain in the notion of Individual Differences (IDs). FLA has also been the centripetal point of investigations in the field. Consequently, research has identified its main causes and effects as well as strategies that can be implemented to overcome the phenomenon, especially FLA in the oral performance. Nonetheless, previous investigations have failed to provide a teaching method that actually focuses on alleviating or palliating students’ oral FLA. Hence, the purpose of this current contribution consists of two parts. First of all, it aims at giving a proper insight into FLA paying attention to the theories of IDs and affective variables in general and FLA in particular. Secondly, the main objective of this paper is to elaborate a teaching proposal that truly concentrates on palliating or alleviating students’ oral FLA taking into account the strategies suggested by research. Thus, the designed method is generally intended for upper-intermediate (B2) learners of English and will comprise three lessons with different activities to help students reduce their oral FLA. Further research on the current topic would be advisable to actually implement this proposal and prove its validity