Anxiety about English Spoken Language

As shown in Table 8, the students showed less anxiety about comprehension of Table 8

Statements Shown Decreased Listening Anxiety

Category No. Statements First (n=83) Second (n=83) t p-value get so confused I can't remember what I've heard.

2.506 .9800 2.145 .9388 2.965 .004**

23 The hardest part of learning English is learning to understand spoken English.

2.904 .9188 2.554 .9403 2.559 .012*

25 It frightens me when I don’t understand what the FTA is saying.

2.614 .9217 2.229 .8879 3.322 .001**

Note. *p < .05; **p < .01

English spoken language when comparing the first and the second mean scores: they felt less confused (No.21), less anxiety in understanding spoken English (No.23) and they were less frightened when they didn’t understand what FTAs were saying (No.25). The decrease in listening anxiety about comprehension of English spoken language might be the result of more exposure to spoken English and FTAs’ use of visualization in instruction.

In the native-teacher-led co-teaching context, students were able to listen to as much English as possible. The FTAs often tried to speak English all the time and the students appeared more accustomed to listening to English especially spoken English.

At the beginning of the lessons, students might suffer more anxiety since they were not used to English-only classroom environment. Before the presence of FTAs, students were more adapted to LETs using their first language in English classes.

When entering an English-only classroom, the students might suffer more emotional stress and anxiety. However, once they were adapted to the English medium

instruction and understood more about FTAs’ instruction, their listening anxiety declined. Investigating learners’ anxiety level of target language use and the amount of target language use in FL classes, the results from Levine (2003) showed that the correlation was in the inverse relationship. That is, the lower the anxiety towards target language, the higher the target language use. It was thus assumed that being exposed in the English-only environment for a while, students tended to have less listening anxiety.

In addition, one of FTAs regularly taught one authentic idiom each week to allow

his students know more about the spoken English. The FTA provided contextual cues when introducing the idiom, which helped activate learners’ appropriate schema (Ausubel, 1968), so that the students could naturally learn the usage instead of through rote learning. The learners not only loved those idioms of the week but also used them in a very proper situation, as can be seen from the following classroom observation.

S3: (shared a sentence she made) “I never ride elephants.”

FTA: “Never?”

S3 (surely said):”Never.”

FTA: “ I sometimes ride elephants. ” (while smiling to his students) S4: “I don’t buy it!”

FTA: “You don’t buy it? All right.” (Laughing) (Classroom observation, March 22, 2016)

This FTA changed the adverb of frequency and exaggerated the sentence that a

student made. One student immediately responded to him, “I don’t buy it,” which was the idiom taught by the FTA last semester. After one-year of FTAs’ teaching, the students could understand more spoken English since they had more opportunities to listen to it. Moreover, the quote below demonstrates how students felt about the authentic sentences that FTAs brought to them.

因為課本有時候教的並不是像外國那麼常講的，可是生英課(外籍助教 的課)教的一些句子都是國外比較常講的，我就會想(之後)到國外就可 以用。”

( I learn more authentic sentences coming from the FTA’s class than the normal textbooks, so I think that I can use them if going abroad in the future.) (Emma, Jun 22, 2016)

Another reason for students’ reduced anxiety at comprehending spoken language

might be the effect of the FTAs’ use of visualization in instruction. From the classroom observations, the FTAs often utilized actual objects and pictures to facilitate students’ understanding when introducing some vocabulary or explaining complicated concepts. Also, they sometimes taught new content accompanied with video clips in order to let learners understand what was being discussed. In the classroom, visual stimuli not only help make connection with learners’ personal experience but also make the instructor’s instruction more accessible for learners (Vogly, 1999); thus, visual support could be a beneficial addition to reduce

comprehension-related anxiety that may occur when the students think they did not understand FTAs’ teachings.

Arnold (1999) stated the important relationship between visualization and effects in language learning since the imagery information can stimulate the emotional reactions associated with the lexical information. With the help of images, learners may be involved with positive emotions and have their learning reinforced. An empirical study done by Arnold (2000) further suggested that the visualization-relaxation exercise is a way of dealing with listening comprehension exam anxiety.

Though Arnold’s (2000) study focuses on a kind of test anxiety, there is an implication that visualization can reduce anxiety about language learning. In the present study, remark made by a relatively shy interviewee, from the quiet group, showed the reduction of listening anxiety with the FTA’s use of visualization. The student stated,

“Pictures and videos help me understand the FTA’s words and reduce my nervousness and uncertainty in listening (taken from Colin, June, 22, 2016).” His perception validated that with the aid of different sensory sources alleviation of learner's listening anxiety can be achieved.