How does learner anxiety, or "communication apprehension," affect foreign language learning? What is your experience as a learner, have you ever felt such an anxiety? Can anxiety play a positive role in learning? What can be done to alleviate anxiety in the classroom?
Learner anxiety makes the student focus a large part of his mental capacity on worrying and being overwhelmed. This must be a very bad condition and environment for learning anything, including foreign language. A good example of learner anxiety is when a student asks their math teacher for help on a problem and the teacher tries to get the answer out of them by looking over their shoulder and seemingly offering little to no help. You start to think about how long it's taking you to figure out a problem that the teacher probably sees as really easy and simple making it more impossible to figure out the answer then it was before you asked for help. No one wants to seem stupid in front of their teacher, or anyone else for that matter.
If learner anxiety is taking up half of their thinking, I would imagine that they are only able to soak up half of what they could have otherwise. Anxiety only plays a negative role in learning. There are no positives to it.
I am a great example for foreign language learning anxiety. :) At my high school, we had bi-semester block scheduling and classes of French 1 to 5 and then AP. I had two different French teachers at my high school of which I had one for French 1 and the other one for French 2. Long story short, thanks to my French 2 teacher, I was able to take French 2 and French 5 in the same year. But my previous French 1 teacher was the French 5 teacher and clearly did not think that I belonged in that class nor that I would ever be successful there. So the entire semester, not only was I lower in ability than the other 8 students, but I was also afraid of my teacher thinking I couldn't handle it. So for example, instead of concentrating on trying to understand her when she spoke, I was afraid that she'd call on me or something like she often did. In reality, she was a super good teacher, but she could have easily given me an adjustment period before she started calling me out in front of the class and things of that nature that I remember her doing. And along with all of that, everyone will tell you that she was very intimidating. :)
I think knowing who can handle being called on is one way to alleviate learner anxiety. This is not just from my experience in French class, but of friends and siblings who clearly did not benefit from forced participation in that way. I know my sister is the same way in math class; when she's called on she instantly freezes and will say "You know I don't know the answer. Stop calling on me," even though she could figure it out on her own.
I would assume that it is probably relatively easy for a teacher to pick up on learner anxiety and therefore should know when something is or isn't working for individual students and try to figure something else out.
I like your idea about having some sort of "adjustment period" for students that are not yet comfortable using their L2 in the classroom. Although I want my whole Spanish 401 class to participate, I know that calling certain students out will make them even more timid. Each student should be held to the same standards, yet teachers need to be mindful of different personalities and individual learning styles. As an instructor, I don't want students to take advantage of me, but at the same time I do not want to intimidate anyone into thinking that he or she should stop trying to contribute to class discussions.
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