Page 12 - ELG1704 Apr Issue 446

RESEARCH NEWS

Don’t

worry, be

happy?

Light your students’ fire instead of
worrying about them being cold,
a study suggests

EACHERS concerned about their relation to their classmates seemed to affect more enjoyment and anxiety.

students’ anxiety over foreign only enjoyment, and did not have a link to According to a previous study by Dewaele
language learning should stop anxiety levels. & McIntyre, girls tend to experience more
focusing on the negative feeling – The proportion of time spent writing, enjoyment, excitement and pride in the
T and aim at helping students enjoy listening and reading also seems to be foreign-language classroom but also more
their lessons instead, a new study suggests. unrelated to both anxiety and enjoyment. mild anxiety – whereas they don’t differ
New research on British students by However, spending up to 60 per cent of class substantially from boys in the more severe
Jean-Marc Dewaele et al (see pages 35–36), time speaking meant students enjoyed classes manifestations of anxiety. The authors of that
says that teachers should take the focus off more. But any more than that and fun levels study also suggest that heightened emotion-
anxiety because they can have little influence dipped. Speaking – perhaps contrary to popu- ality (which can include a mild anxiety) can
over it. lar opinion – was not linked to anxiety. be conducive to good learning.
Teachers should ‘light their students’ fire’ In general, high levels of enjoyment The sample of the latest research study
instead of worrying about them being cold, seem to be negatively correlated to high included one selective and one semi-selective
the authors say. In short, they should focus levels of anxiety. Some activities can boost school where there was widespread bilingual-
on the positive emotion which they can students’ enjoyment – the use of L2 in class, ism among learners. As the authors admit,
control – enjoyment. for example, was positively correlated to it their findings only relate to ‘good language
The study, which looked at how levels of (although this may be a sample effect). Also, learners’. Despite the limitations of its sam-
student anxiety are affected by the teacher student-centred activities can help. ple, the study offers teachers some good food
and other classroom factors, found that at- However, foreign language enjoyment for thought.
titudes towards staff did not seem related to won’t magically counteract a student’s anx- Dewaele, J.-M., Witney, J., Saito, K. &
anxiety levels. In other words, students can iousness. Dewaele, L. (2017) Foreign language enjoy-
feel anxious even with a well-loved teacher. Both feelings can quite easily coexist – ment and anxiety: The effect of teacher and
How well the student is performing in especially in girls, who can experience both learner variables
Positive psychology to the rescue

By: Claudia Civinini
box). However, the issue has not Anxiety, features contributions for example, could be gradual
yet been tackled to a great extent from well-known names in this desensitisation to the anxiety
‘FEW other psychological in teacher training. field of research, including Elaine trigger – for example, rather
dimensions have been so widely The response to the teacher’s Horwitz. than avoiding a performance
researched in second language cry for help may lie in education- One of the contributors, in front of the class, students
acquisition as anxiety,’ according al psychology. A new book edited Rebecca Oxford, looks at how can be gradually accustomed to
to Dewaele (2017). And teachers by Christina Gkonou, Mark ways to deal with general anxiety it and praised at every positive
continue to look for the answers Daubney and Jean-Marc Dewaele, disorders can apply to foreign step forward. The book will be
to deal with the problem (see New Insights into Foreign Language language anxiety. One of these, published on 30 April.

12 April 2017

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