Language Anxiety and its Effect on

Oral Performance in Classroom

Zhang Xianping

Xiangfan University

Abstract:
This study addresses the issues of language anxiety and its effect on the oral performance of
students in classroom. Participants were 97 non-English major college students in an ordinary
university in China. Participants were first given the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety
Scale to measure their anxiety degrees. Based on the results of the measurement,8 volunteers
were chosen to conduct an interview in a classroom context. The interview and comments of
high-anxious and low-anxious students were videotaped and transcribed for analyses. It was
found that there was a reverse relationship between language anxiety and the quality of oral
performance, that is , the higher the anxiety score, the lower their oral performance score. The
higher anxious students tended to produce fewer Cus, and the length of their Cus were
shorter ,their error-free Cus were also fewer than their lower anxious counterparts.
Procratination,fear of evaluation and overconcern of errors were characteristics obviously
noticed in their speech. At the end of the paper,some pedagogical implications were also
suggested to alleviate students anxiety.

Key words: language anxiety, oral performance,effect

I. Introduction:
Language anxiety is a state of apprehension occurring in the process of a
second/ foreign language use owing to the user’s incompetence in communication
with the language. It’s a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and
behaviors… arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process.(Horwitz
et al., 1991:31)
Language anxiety integrates three related performance anxieties: (1)
communication apprehension; (2) test anxiety; and (3) fear of negative evaluation.
Due to its emphasis on interpersonal interaction, the construct of communication
apprehension is quite relevant to the conceptualization of foreign language anxiety
(McCroskey 1977). It is a type of shyness characterized by fear of or anxiety about
communication with people. Difficulty in speaking in dyads or groups (oral
communication anxiety) or in public (stage fright ) or in listening to or learning a
spoken message (receive anxiety )are all manifestations of communication

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apprehension .Communication apprehension or some similar reactions obviously
play a vital role in foreign language anxiety. People who typically have trouble
speaking in group are likely to experience even greater difficulty speaking in a
foreign language class where they have little control of the communicative
situation and their performance is constantly monitored. Moreover, in addition to
all the usual concerns about oral communication, the foreign language class
requires the students to communicate via a medium in which only limited facility is
possessed. The special communication apprehension during the foreign language
learning also comes from the personal knowledge that one will almost certainly
have difficulty understanding others and making oneself understood. Possibly
because of this, many talkative people are silent in a foreign language
communication situation.
Test anxiety refers to a type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of
failure (Gordon & Sarason 1955, Sarason 1980). It is the tendency to become
alarmed about the consequences of inadequate performance on a test or other
evaluation (Sarason, 1984, cited in Oxford, 1999:64). Test-anxious students often
put unrealistic demands on themselves and feel that anything less than a perfect test
performance is a failure. Students who are test-anxious in foreign language class
probably experience considerable difficulty since tests and quizzes are frequent and
even the brightest and most prepared students often make errors. Oral tests have the
potential of provoking both test and oral communication anxieties simultaneously
in some students.
Fear of negative evaluation is defined as the apprehension about other’s
evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situation, and the expectation that others
would evaluate one negatively (Wastson & Friend 1969). It’s broader in scope
than the test anxiety because it may occur in any social, evaluative situation. In the
language classroom, fear of negative evaluation is likely to be manifested in a
student’s over concern with academic and personal evaluation of his or her
performance and competence in the target language (Maclntyre & Gardner 1988).
Although it’s axiomatic that language learning can’t occur without errors, errors
can be the source of anxiety in some individuals because they draw attention to the
difficulty of making positive social impressions when speaking a new language
(Maclntyre & Gardner 1988).Like communication anxious individuals, people who
fear negative evaluation rarely initiate conversation and interact minimally.
Language students who experience this anxiety tend to sit passively in the
classroom, withdraw from activities that could increase their language skills, and
may even avoid class entirely (Ely,1986; Gregersen,1999/2000; Horwitz, Horwitz
& Cope, 1986).

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 Although communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative
evaluation provide useful conceptual building blocks for a description of foreign
language anxiety, researches indicate that foreign language anxiety is not simply
the combination of those fears transferred to foreign language learning, It’s a
distinct complex of factors related to classroom language learning in the language
learning process( Horwitz et al 1986:30).
This paper studies the relationship between language anxiety and oral
performance in classroom. Koch and Terrell (1991,cited in Oxford ; 1992;65)
argued that more than half of their subjects reported oral skits and oral
presentations in front of the class as the most anxiety—producing activities.
Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986:34) stated that students with high anxiety
were afraid of speaking in the foreign language. They had a deep sense of
self-consciousness and viewed foreign language production in classroom as a test
situation rather than as an opportunity for communication.
In China, people are learning foreign language mainly through classroom
teaching. As the focus of FL teaching began to be transferred from teaching to
learning in recent years, Many research programs concerning learners’ variables
have been developed. And researches on language anxiety are no exception.
Wang Yingquan and Wan Yushu (2001:125) provided a quiet comprehensive
survey of foreign language anxiety research abroad and concluded that language
anxiety will produce a negative impact on the learners’ achievements. Hu Hongyan
(2003:36) conducted a research on the influence of anxiety and self-confidence on
English learning among the English majors in Nanhua University with their MET 4
achievements and concluded that anxiety is negatively related to testing score, and
dictation and listening are two skills most closely affected by anxiety and
self-confidence. However, the research on the spoken English in class, which was
regarded as the most threatening experience by language learners, has not been
found to be conducted in the Chinese foreign language learning context.
Therefore, my research will concentrate on the investigation of the foreign
language anxiety and its effect on student’s classroom oral performance. Two
questions to be addressed in the study are: (1) what are the effects of language
anxiety on student’s oral performance in classroom as measured by the oral
performance scores and other variables? (2) What are the characteristics of anxious
students’ oral performance? And what do the students say about their experience in
classroom oral performance ?and the implications of the research?

Ⅱ.Methodology
1.Subjects

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 97 second- year non-English major college students( two classes) were
selected in the International Trade and Management Department of XiangFan
University, an ordinary comprehensive university far away from the provincial
capital city. The student’s ages ranged from 19—21years old. They were going to
complete their basic stage of English learning at college. In addition to their college
English course for non-English majors, they were also offered listening and
speaking, and integrated English courses as English majors during the first two
years. They were chosen in the hope of being capable to speak English in the
investigation.
2. Instrument
2.1 The FLCAS
The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale ( Horwitz et al 1986:31)
was administered to subjects in the investigation with some minor modifications.
For example, the last statement was replaced by the sentence “in the English
speaking environments, I can never show myself as smart as I usually am”. The
FLCAS, consisting of 33 statements, was scored on a five-point Likert scale,
ranging from “strongly agree” to ‘‘strongly disagree’’, with 8 statements scored
reversely, that is,”strongly agree” indicating one point and “strongly disagree”
indicating five points. The total scores of the scale could range from 33 to 165.All
the statements presented were reflective of communication apprehension, test
anxiety and fear of negative evaluation in the foreign language classroom. The
internal consistency as measured by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, was. 93, and the
test-retest reliability was r= .83, p=0.001,n=78.The scale was scored so that the
higher the score, the higher the anxiety. Thus Horwitz et al (1991:38) concluded
that “foreign language anxiety can be reliably and validly measured “by the
FLCAS, and as N.E. Pappamihiel(2002:334) also pointed out “The FLCAS was
developed for a foreign language population, in other words, the target population
included students who were studying another language from the perspective of
their native language”. So it is both theoretically and practically proper to use the
scale in the investigation.
2.2 Communication Unit (Cu)
Basically an independent clause with all its modifies, Cu had been used to
measure the subjects’ written language maturity ,but could be extended to
measure oral maturity. Phillips(1992:16-17)argued that Cus could measure the
quantity of comprehensible output, and the length of Cu can determine the
syntactic maturity of the speaker. So I adopted it in my research with the hypothesis
that the higher –anxious students would produce fewer and shorter Cus than their
lower anxious counterparts. For this purpose, three variables were measured:

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number of Cus, average length of the Cus, and number of error-free Cus
2.3 Reaction variables
In describing students’ reactions during their oral performance, three variables
were applied: procrastination, fear of evaluation and concern over errors. Gregersen
& Horwitz (2002:566) contended that students with communication apprehension,
test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation would often demonstrate a mismatch
between their mature thoughts and immature foreign language proficiency. They
usually display long delays in completing assignments or repeatedly restart them
because they believe that it will help them to do the assignment better. With this
unrealistic expectation in mind, they may actually avoid speaking or postpone their
assignment till the last minute. They tended to fear the evaluation of their peers,
and often compared themselves negatively with their peers and showed an over
concern of the errors they made. In this study the three variables were used to
describe the characteristics of high anxious students’ speech.
3. Procedures
In April 2003, all the 97 students were asked to answer the Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale. After completing the FLCAS, 8 students (4 with lower
anxiety scores and 4 with higher anxiety scores)were selected voluntarily into two
groups to participate in the second phase of the study-----the oral interview.
The interview was held in a classroom context, that is ,a teacher was giving the
class, with all other students attended , but only the 8 students selected were
supposed to speak. And a video camera and recording devices were used to
record the process, with three raters invited to evaluate the subjects’ oral
performance.
In the interview, participants were acted in a one-to-one oral interview designed
to elicit a sample of their conversational English ability in classroom. Each
interview lasted 5-8 minutes and the oral interview was conducted by the author
during which, the participants were asked to respond in English to common
conversational prompts:
1. Where are you from?
2. Can you tell us something. about your hometown?
3. What are you going to do in the future? Why?
4. How do you normally spend your weekends?
The topics were chosen from among everyday questions to build some familiarity
in students. they were required to answer these questions and to make a relatively
complete speech for 2-3 minutes in whichever topic they thought they could
perform the best.
Meanwhile, three raters evaluated the participants and gave proficiency scores

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 respectively. The final scores of the interviewees got from the mean scores of three
raters when the whole interview was finished.
Then, the videotaped conversations were used to examine the reactions of the
subjects. All 8 students were immediately invited to review their videos with the
author and again, all agreed. In this part of the study, the participants watched their
videotaped interviews and were asked to reflect on their own performances. It was
conducted one by one and the students were given the option to comment either in
English or Chinese. We noticed that two interviewees commented in Chinese.
(High-anxious students No.2and No.3)When the videotape ended, the interviewer
prompted the students with such question as “what do you think of your
performance?” “Are you satisfied with it? why ?” “Are you afraid of making
mistakes in speaking English?” etc.

III. Results and discussion

3.1 The effect of language anxiety on oral performance in classroom
Table 1 FLCAS scores
Mean 96.2
Mode 95(5persons)
Standard Deviation 16.9
High-Anxious Student No.1 129
High-Anxious Student No.2 129
High-Anxious Student No.3 120
High-Anxious Student No.4 115
Low- Anxious Student No.1 50
Low- Anxious Student No.2 57
Low- Anxious Student No.3 66
Low- Anxious Student No.4 68
Table 1 shows the FLCAS scores of the interviewees. The mean FLCAS score
of the 97 students was 96.2; The Mode was 95(5 persons) and the SD(standard
deviation)was 16.9. The highest anxiety score of the selected participants was 129 and
the lowest was 50. The range was 79. The results (SD and the range) indicated that the
degrees of language anxiety among students varied greatly to two extremes. Most
students seemed to experience mild to severe anxieties as the mean and mode were a bit
higher than expected. Still, this is true to the reality of the students. The university is an
ordinary university. Most of its students did not earn high scores in the university-
entrance examination compared with the scores of students in other key universities, and
as some students commented that they entered this university mainly because of their
lower scores in English. As a result, English had been regarded by them as the most

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threatening course.

Table 2:A comparison of scores in language anxiety and oral performance

Students AS OPS Mean
HA1 129 1.5 2.7
HA2 129 3.2
HA3 120 2.8
HA4 115 3.4
LA1 50 3.5 3.9
LA2 57 4.2
LA3 66 4.6
LA4 68 3.3
. HA1: High-Anxious Student No.1 LA1: Low- Anxious Student No.1
HA2: High-Anxious Student No.2 LA2: Low- Anxious Student No.2
HA3: High-Anxious Student No.3 LA3: Low- Anxious Student No.3
HA4: High-Anxious Student No.4 LA4: Low- Anxious Student No.4
AS: anxiety score OPS: Oral performance score
Table 2 presents the proficiency scores of the interviewees in the two groups. The
mean score of the Low-Anxious students group was obviously higher than that of
the High-Anxious students group. It seemed to indicate that the anxiety about
speaking a foreign language could affect the quality of oral production. It
appeared to show that in general , as the anxiety increases, the quality of oral
performance decreases. However, viewed from the aspect of individuals, the
language anxiety scores student obtained were not so consistent with the oral scores.
The least anxious student(LA1)was not the best in the oral performance; and
students (HA2 & 4) achieved higher oral scores with high anxieties. The actual
oral performance scores demonstrated by the students during the interview were
not so highly related to language anxiety as we hand expected in these learners
before. It might be assumed that the language anxiety may not be the only variable
affecting the oral performance.
3.2: Language maturity and characteristics measured
Table 3:Performance variables in measuring language maturity.
Students NC ALC EFC
HA1 5 8 2
HA2 8 10.3 5
HA3 8 9.0 4
HA4 9 11.5 6
LA1 12 14.2 7

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 LA2 10 13.1 8
LA3 13 12.8 6
LA4 12 13.6 6
NC: number of Cu ALC: Average length of Cu EFC: Error- free Cu

Three variables measured in the study revealed a significant reverse

relationship between the students’ degrees of language anxiety and their ability in
oral performance. The high-anxious group of students’ tended to say less, produced
fewer Cus(with average number of Cus 7.5 against 11.7 of their lower anxious
counterparts), and shorter Cus(with the mean number of words in each Cu 9.7
against 11.7 of their counterparts) , and their error-free Cus are significantly fewer
than that of the low-anxious students(4.2:6.5).Therefore, it is safe to say that the
higher the anxiety, the lower their language maturity
Table 4: Frequency of reaction variables in oral performance
Student P F O T

HA1 4 3 3 10

HA2 5 2 2 9

HA3 3 3 3 9

HA4 2 2 1 7

Mean 3.5 2.5 2.25

LA1 1 0 1 6

LA2 2 1 1 4

LA3 2 1 2 5

LA4 3 2 1 6

Mean 2. 1.3 1.66

P: Procrastination F: Fear of evaluation

O: Overconcern of errors T: Total
Procrastination, fear of evaluation and over concern of errors may be regarded as
three important criterion for distinguishing anxious and non-anxious students.
Anxious students often demonstrate long delays in completing assignments or
repeated restarted them because they expected to behave better the second time.
For example, HA2 behaved nervously in answering the question, she paused for a
long time before she begin to speak and restated her story two times as she was
struggling for a better beginning. HA3 said that every time he tried to speaker
better, only to find he looked so foolish as he believed his second trying would
have made more mistakes. The common point for this group of students was their
avoidance in their language expression. they looked nervously and usually paused
for some time or even took a long breath before they began to speak. On the other
hand, low anxious group were happy to discuss their performance. They recognized

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their imperfectness in the oral performance, but were more realistic and seemed
proud of their achievement. Low-anxious students(LA1 & 2) told author that they
had never seen themselves on TV before, and they felt very satisfied with result.
LA1 felt some difficulty in finding proper words in her speech but viewed it as
natural to a student like her..
The two groups of students took very different views about the being
evaluated in their oral performance. For high anxious students, they could display a
frustration towards such evaluation, they expressed their horror about waiting for
criticisms and often compared themselves negatively with their peers. They had no
confidence in pronunciation and intonation, and were afraid of ‘being
spotlighted” or “ being laughed at”, as high anxious students(HA1 &2) told author,
and an trifle sign given by their classmates in the process of their speaking would
be regarded as a mocking signal. They became very sensitive, as HA4 said: “I am
so bothered about speaking in front of class and feel shameful because I sense that
every body is looking at me. I’m looking like fool. Although sometimes I know
what I am thinking is not the case. I cannot stop thinking that way”. On the other
hand, low anxious students had more confidence in speaking in class.LA1 told the
author that she did not feel nervous in speaking English in class: ”I do not care how
other people think of me, I just say what I know in class”. And all other Las made
same comments on their performance in class. The feeling of fear of being
evaluated clearly distinguishes high-anxious and low-anxious foreign language
learners.
High-anxious and low-anxious students also took different views on the errors
they had made in oral performance. HA1said: “I have made so many mistakes, in
persons, tenses, and other grammatical point… Oh. That is a silly mistake!” HA4
complained: “… Oh. I made mistakes in so many places! Verbs! Pronouns!
Prepositions! I don’t know why…”!In classroom performance, she stopped several
times to correct her grammatical mistakes in the speech.HA1 corrected her speech
time and again, first, she changed “he” into” she”, and then the tenses. By
contrast, LA3 committed” I made some mistakes. I think that is natural. I think I
have done well”. LA4 said: “ I feel calm and easy when the topic seems good to me,
and I don’t notice my mistakes when I am speaking. Now I see myself on TV, and I
notice my mistakes, not too many. It’s OK.” When they spoke in class, they seldom
stopped to correct mistakes. Their attitudes towards errors in the speeches were in a
sharp contrast.

IV . Pedagogical implications
Generally speaking, EFL learning is a very sophisticated process and language

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anxiety, as a major learner’s variable, affect the learning process in a very subtle
way. Teachers may have already seen or sensed in their students many or all of the
indications discussed in the paper. Extremely anxious students were highly
motivated to avoid engaging in some classroom activities they fear the most: such
as making dialogues or role-plays. They may choose to sit in the back row or avoid
eye-contact with teachers. Therefore, teachers should keep in mind that anxiety is
responsible for the students’ habitual behaviors in class. Brophy(1999) suggested
seven measures for teachers to deal with perfectionist students, some may be
suggested here to reduce the students’ language anxiety:(1)building a friendly,
supportive learning environments;(2) establishing the expectation that mistakes are
a normal part of the learning process; (3)presenting themselves as helpful
instructors concerned primarily with promoting students learning, rather than an
authority figure concerned primarily with evaluating students’ performance….
However, it is not enough only for the teachers to make such efforts to promote
students learning process. Experts should be also asked to provide help for anxious
students, especially for those highly anxious ones. In this case, some specific
psychological techniques shall be applied. Above all, it is important for students to
remember the value of controlling their emotional state and remaining calm when
speaking English. Usually most of them feel relaxed when making mistakes in
speaking their mother tongue, therefore, it is beneficial for them to really
understand that errors are a normal and acceptable part in everyone’s process of
learning a language, particularly a foreign language.

V. Conclusion
The results of this study indicated that many students experienced varied
language anxiety and language anxiety could affect the quality of oral English
performance. In general, as the anxiety increases, the quality of oral performance
decreases. However, variables affecting speech may be complicated and language
anxiety can not be regarded as the only one. The students with high anxiety seemed
to produce fewer Cus, and their length of Cus and error free expressions were also
affected by the degree of language anxiety. Procrastination, fear of evaluation and
over concern of errors can be regarded as three characteristics displayed in high
anxious students oral performance.
Several limitations to this study must be noticed. Firstly, only a small group of
learners in a specific language-learning context were examined, which limits the
generalizability of the findings. It’s entirely possible that other language learners in
the same or different learning situations would have different reactions. For
example, if the oral interview is administered as an official test, it’s possible that

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 anxiety will increase and the results of this study would be different. What’s more,
when this study is conducted in less advanced students, who account for a large
part in my university, the results will be different. Therefore, it is not an easy task
to describe the relationship between language and oral performance in just a couple
of sentences. Therefore, it should be examined in a variety of learning groups at
various stages of language learning with various learning goals. Finally, the study
was to show the indications of high anxious students, and it was thus designed to
detect such instances, while high-anxious and low-anxious language learners likely
differ in many important ways other than the characteristics examined here.

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