Learning a foreign language can be challenging, but many times those challenges are a direct result of anxiety that can have adverse effects on the student’s ability to learn.
Taghreed M. Al-Saraj, a post doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley who specializes in foreign language anxiety, came to Cal State Long Beach on Thursday to discuss language anxiety in the classroom, which she said she experienced first hand while teaching English to Arabic-speaking students.
The lecture, titled “One Size Does NOT Fit All When it Comes to Foreign Language Anxiety,” took place in the Academic Services building and was attended by approximately 30 people.
“We should always enjoy the process of learning a new language,” she said. “There is a negative relationship between foreign language anxiety and achievement.”
Al-Saraj developed an Arabic Foreign Language Anxiety Questionnaire, which is targeted at an Arab language learner and designed to help pinpoint sources of anxiety within that community.
“Teachers can administer AFLAQ to students at any time during the semester to track their progress,” Al-Saraj said. “It allows you to see what exactly is causing the anxiety amongst students, and it allows teachers to adapt different strategies.”
She was quick to point out, however, that the questionnaire is specific to Arab-speaking students and will not work effectively if translated to a different language.
Al-Saraj said students with foreign language anxiety sometimes fall into avoidance behavior, such as a student who skips class because they don’t want to feel pressure or anxiety to perform.
“From my research, I’ve discovered that some physical symptoms of foreign language anxiety include strong headaches and a buzzing sound inside the student’s head that prevents him or her from hearing what the teacher is saying,” she said.
During the presentation, Al-Saraj divided attendees, which consisted of students and instructors, into small groups to discuss what makes them anxious when leaning a new language. Each group was given a large sheet of paper to write down their thoughts, and they wrote down things like “being called on” and “embarrassed of accent” as sources of anxiety.
“My ambition is to make teachers aware of what makes the students anxious and what to do in order to avoid that,” she said.
A group of professors in attendance were also asked to write down what makes them anxious when teaching foreign language students, and they wrote down things like “unexpected questions” and “lack of patience for slow students.”
Al-Saraj earned her PhD from the Institute of Education at the University of London in 2011. She also earned her bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Miami. She is the first Saudi female post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley.