A study of upper-secondary school EFL Thai students’ anxiety in english language classroom

Abstract

The present study investigated upper-secondary school EFL Thai students’ anxiety in English language classroom. The participants were 40 Matthayomsuksa 4 students (relatively equivalent to grade 10) enrolling in the first semester of 2014 academic year at the K.M. school (pseudonym). They were 14 males and 26 females. Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was used to measure the extent to which the students felt anxious in EFL classroom. Based on items in FLCAS scale, anxiety has three components: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. The results revealed that overall the majority of the participants (75%) experienced moderate or high level of EFL classroom anxiety. As indicated by the FLCAS gained scores, the participating students could be grouped according to level of anxiety as having low ( x =0-1.69), average ( x =1.70-3.49), and high ( x ≥ 3.5) anxiety. Regarding the components of foreign language anxiety, fear of negative evaluation was the situation that made students the most anxious. Moreover, the majority of the participating students reported that they worried about the consequences of failing their English class the most ( x =3.90). Furthermore, those with high and low anxiety noticeably shared fear of negative evaluation as the variable that made them most anxious, while those with average anxiety were found to be most anxious about communication apprehension. Consequently, the finding of present study shed light on the importance of teacher’s attention to student’s anxiety which could take place in the process of teaching and learning.