English Language Anxiety of Pre-service Teachers: Implications on Self-Improvement and Instruction

Writing and speaking performances can create anxiety for second language users. Recent research found that causes stem from internal and environmental factors. English writing and speaking anxiety can be common for non-native speakers, especially for those students majoring in English. Therefore, the aim of this quantitative descriptive study is to determine the level and causes of anxiety in writing and speaking of students taking the Bachelor in Secondary Education Major in English program at Cebu Normal University. Two standardized questionnaires, the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (Cheng, 2004) [8] and the Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (Yaikhong & Usaha, 2012) [46], were administered to fifty respondents selected through Stratified Random Sampling. Among these are first-year to fourth-year English major students. The researchers used Descriptive Analysis to analyze the data. Results indicate that English majors have moderate levels of writing anxiety caused by worries and fears about composition evaluation, composition being derided, poor grades, and time constraints. Similarly, moderate levels of speaking anxiety were also perceived because of forgetting things due to nervousness, being called to speak, and speaking in English without advance preparation. These findings indicate that students are capable of doing and performing writing and speaking activities well if they are prepared and confident about their skills and knowledge. This study provides implications for educators in designing pedagogies to alleviate students' writing and speaking anxiety. It also opens opportunities for conducting further studies about what strategies should be used to eliminate these anxieties and their causes in a larger population.