The teacher as a source of anxiety for university students

Abstract

Students experience anxiety when learning a foreign language and this anxiety can be caused by a wide variety of factors. As part of a wider research project into the role of students' perceptions in the language-learning process, this study explores the perceptions of three groups of university students on the verbal and nonverbal behaviour of teachers in class and how this affects their feelings of anxiety. Furthermore, it examines the degree of responsibility these learners attribute to their teacher for a particular anxiety episode. A qualitative/quantitative design was used. Findings indicated that teacher-related anxiety was most often associated with classroom management techniques, particularly with teachers' ways of "inviting" students to speak and with the pace adopted by the teacher in the lesson. The carefully elaborated reports of many of the participants in the study revealed the importance of teachers' professional and emotional skills. Other findings showed, however, that learners placed a higher degree of responsibility for their anxiety on themselves than on the teacher. On the basis of these results, the study suggests some measures that can be followed in the classroom to reduce anxiety levels. Such measures are expected to yield positive results in the performance of the learners.