
THE ROLE OF TEACHER EXPERIENCE IN SHAPING AND MITIGATING FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY
Kurbonova Parizoda Alisherovna , Student of Westminster International university in Tashkent MALT TESOL, Tashkent, UzbekistanAbstract
Current trend on learning foreign language has become widely popular in different corners of the world, with billions of students trying to acquire it in order to pass exams, become a student, find a work, promote, travel, move and so on. Unquestionably, there are countless occasions which require people in different ages know and be able to use language fluently. However, similarly there are countless factors which hinder people from learning the necessary language, and on of them is Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), which is significant affective factor influencing second language acquisition, by affecting learners classroom engagement, language performance, and overall achievement. However, this language phenomenon remains under explored, since studies conducted so far focused only on certain aspects of FLA such as its nature, causes, effects, remaining other important aspects as teachers’ role, mitigating and so on unstudied. Moreover, prior studies applicable for only specific contexts such as institutions or countries. This study, therefore, aims to explore role of teachers’ experience on mitigating FLA that their students have. To achieve this mixed-method study has been conducted in Westminster International University in Tashkent , that examined 48 Postgraduate teacher-students with the help of online questionnaire, 10 of them were interviewed, and 5 observed when they were teaching. First, participants awareness of FLA’s causes and effects was examined in the questionnaire, then strategies that these students use to address FLA have been outlined in the interview, before being ensured in Observations. Findings revealed that student-teachers’ who had worked as a teacher for a long time understands the nature of FLA, its causes and effects more than student-teachers who does not have as much experience in this field. Furthermore, former category of student-teachers have already created and used strategies to mitigate FLA, while later ones could not do so, because they do not know any strategies, resulting in their students failing their language learning.
To achieve this, all interview participants were selected according to their teaching experience and had various teaching experience, starting with 0-1 years of teaching to 10+ years.
Keywords
Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA), Teacher Awareness, TESOL, FLA strategies, Teacher Experience, Causes of FLA, Effects of FLA.
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