• Nouroddin Yousofi

  Author

• Soroor Ashtarian

  Author

Foreign language learning (FLL) anxiety has been widely defined as a subjective
feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry (Young 1991) associated specifically
with the foreign language learning situations. This paper aims to report the results of a study
conducted to identify a typology of the FLL anxiety in the Iranian context and among Iranian
high school students who learn English as a foreign language, the sources of, and the strategies
that students use to cope with the anxiety they experience in English language classrooms.
Results revealed that students experienced four types of anxiety as identified in the literature
namely, test anxiety, communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and English class
anxiety. It was also found that the sources were related to the learner, the teacher, the
classmates, and the institution. The coping strategies were identified as preparation, positive
thinking, relaxation, peer seeking, resignation, reliance on first language as a compensation
strategy and religious beliefs as another coping strategy. Based on these findings, pedagogical
implications related to FLL anxiety management are also discussed.

• pdf