Asep Dadang, 2014 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
This study is intended to investigate elementary school students’ language anxiety at one private school in Kabupaten Bandung Barat. The subsequent sections present background of the
study, research questions, purpose of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, definition of terms, and finally the organization of the thesis.
1.1 Background of the study
Language mastery and proficiency are two main goals in our language education. Teachers do great efforts with various techniques to lead their students achieve the goals.
However, not all of the students acquire the same level of neither mastery nor proficiency with the technique. Some of them may cut class, fail to prepare for class or to do homework, or are
unable to answer even simple questions about the topic being studied in the class. In the last three decades, the study of second language has shifted from the field of
teaching methods to the learner characteristics. The shift is an attempt to better understandings of difficulties in learning a second or foreign language. Therefore, the research into potential
relationships between foreign language acquisition and learner characteristics, especially anxiety have been increasing. Some findings concerning the relationship show how anxiety has no
relationship or positively related to performance Pimsleur, Mosberg, Morrison, 1962; Backman, 1976; Scovel, 1978 in Tseng, 2012.
On the contrary, other researchers have found different results from the previous findings. Higher level of anxiety creates a lower level of achievement. It means researchers find a
negative correlation between anxiety and second language achievement. The higher level of anxiety creates a low level of performance. Awan, Azher, Anwar, Naz, 2010; Chan Wu,
2004; Horwitz, 2001. Much research has been conducted on foreign language anxiety and some researchers
assume that “foreign language anxiety is more relevant to language learning among adults” MacIntyre Gardner, 1991. Thus, most of them focus on high school students Andrade
Asep Dadang, 2014 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
| perpustakaan.upi.edu
William, 2009; Awan, Azher, Anwar, Naz, 2010. In the Indonesian context, anxiety among high school students was observed by Indrianty 2012 who focused on the speaking skill.
However, foreign language anxiety is also observed in children Cha, 2006 and as compared to other age group, there is still a small amount of research investigating young
learner’s anxiety. Previous research has paid little attention to the language anxiety that young learners may experience in learning a foreign language. Only some research has been carefully
designed to study the language anxiety among young learners, for example, Chang Wu 2004 and Cha 2006. Further, the young learners’ anxiety and their strategies coping with it in an
Indonesian context have not been fully investigated yet. As the response to the issues elaborated above, this study attempts to explore the
components and causes of young learners’ language anxiety. Their strategies to cope with the anxiety are explored as well.
1.2 Research Questions
