Also known as language anxiety and listening comprehension anxiety, listening anxiety is a type of stress or anxiety that students who are not native to a language feel when studying a new language. Listening anxiety may negatively affect a student's ability to learn a language, but learning a language may also cause a student to develop listening anxiety.
Problem
Many students who are required to learn a language or people who are placed in a language immersion program may feel overwhelming stress when it comes to learning the language. Students might fear negative feedback from language tests and evaluations, a lack of self-confidence in utilizing the language or suffer from an intimidation factor among peers if he speaks or uses the new language incorrectly.
Identification
Symptoms include visible nervousness or frustration. Listening anxiety is a specific anxiety reaction, meaning that an individual's reactions and feelings are due directly to the scenario of learning a language. Unlike chronic anxiety sufferers whose anxiety is caused by a number of variable factors, people with listening comprehension anxiety may only feel the effects of the anxiety when the situation is directly related to learning the language.
Causes
A 2008 study, reported in the journal "Perceptual and Motor Skills," was done to detect the sources that caused the greatest amount of anxiety to foreign language students. Using a listening questionnaire to test non-native English students, researchers discovered that participants showed moderately high levels of anxiety in listening to spoken English, but became more anxious in actual testing situations than in lecture or conversational situations. The study found that the main causes for anxiety among the students were low confidence in comprehending spoken English, being required to take English courses and their preoccupation with test difficulty.
Effects
Students who suffer from listening anxiety may may not be able to progress in learning a new language skill, whether in written, verbal or listening categories. Students may find it difficult to retain knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure. Furthermore, a student with listening anxiety may be unable to process information and perform according to given instructions due to his inability to comprehend the language.
Solution
In a 1998 study published by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Anita Jones Vogely, Ph.D., explains that in order for students to be effective listeners, they must be able to actively participate in the listening process within a "low-anxiety classroom environment." Receiving training on listening strategies in the classroom and visual feedback that helps the students see their own strengths and weaknesses in learning the language may help address the problem, explains Mehmet Gonen on the 2009 International Conference on Educational Technologies website. Gonen also explains that selecting activities that coincide with the interests and learning methods of the students and interactive participation in speaking the language with other peers can be effective tools in reducing listener's anxiety.
