An Investigation of Students' Foreign Language Anxiety in the EFL Classroom: It's Levels, Causes, and Coping Strategies (A Case Study in Private University in Jakarta)

septi fitri meilana,m.pd; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d; herri mulyono, ph.d;

This research intended to find out EFL University Students’ level of
language anxiety, it causes, and how they cope with it. The present study
implemented a mixed method in case study research. There were three
instruments applied in this research. Those were a questionnaire, semi-structured
interview, and classroom observations. The quantitative data were collected by
questionnaire through FLCAS. The data analyzed through the Statistical Package
for Social Sciences (SPSS) 15.0. The qualitative method was chosen through
classroom observation and a semi-structured interview.
This research involved 28 males and females of the EFL university
students who enrolled in the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education at one of
a private university in Jakarta. The questionnaire items showed that there were
two levels of anxiety in this research as follows: 1. Low level of anxiety (32,1%)
and 2. Moderate level of anxiety (67,9%). From the combination of questionnaire
items and semi-structured interview five causes of language anxiety were
clarified: Test Anxiety (Item No. 10), Communication Apprehension (Item No. 9),
and Fear of Negative Evaluations (Item No. 23, 7, and 33). Some possible causes
that create anxiety among learners, such as inadequate vocabulary/grammatical
knowledge, Self – assessment, and Lack of speaking preparation, were captured in
this study. A total of five coping strategies based on Kondo and Ling (2004) were
initially identified. Also, there were no significant differences found between
students with different level of language anxiety and the coping strategies they
use.