a closer look at the foreign language writing anxiety of turkish efl pre-service teachers

Hazırlayan

A Closer Look at the Foreign Language Writing

Anxiety of Turkish EFL Pre-service Teachers

Zafer SUSOY & Seray TANYERAnadolu University – Eskişehir/TURKEY

Rationale of the Study

The focus of writing classes: on the written product rather than on the writing process.

Students writing short paragraphs or occasional short essays

Students’ occasional work are corrected gramatically (Mechanical feedback)

Other aspects of writing process are hardly touched

A Closer Look at the Foreign Language Writing Anxiety of Turkish EFL Pre-service Teachers


Learners expected to write well-developed English essays to pursue academic goals to pass the prep-classes offered

in many universities to succeed in many degree

programs


Writing in

Tertiary Level

Why pre-service English teachers ? Scarce number of research on writing anxiety from

the perspective of pre-service English teachers in a Turkish context (Atay and Kurt, 2006; Kurt and Atay, 2007; Öztürk and Çeçen, 2007)

Future teachers playing an important role in molding their students’ ideas and attitudes towards writing (Palmquist and Young, 1992)



The Purpose of the Study

The foreign language writing anxiety levels of Turkish pre-service teachers of EFL

The relationship between the writing anxiety and the writing performance

Underlying perceptions and attitudes towards writing in L2 as well as possible

sources of writing anxiety


Research QuestionsWhat is the level of writing anxiety of

Turkish EFL pre-service teachers?

Is there any relationship between the participants’ writing anxiety and writing

performance?

What are the participants’ underlying perceptions and attitudes towards writing

in L2?


Participants of the Study


Between ages

18-21

48(Fourty-eight)

pre-service teachers of English

Randomly selected ‘Academic Writing

and Report Writing’ course

Instruments


An open-ended questionnaire comprised of 6 questions (Atay and Kurt, 2006)

Second Language Writing

Apprehension Inventory (SLWAI)

(Cheng, 2004)

The participants’ first midterm

exam scores as an index of their

writing performance

Data Analysis Procedure

The SLWAI and the students’ writing scores were analyzed by means of SPSS 20.

Pearson Correlation Coefficient test One-way ANOVA Pattern coding strategy for the open-ended

questionnaire(Miles and Huberman,1994).


Results of the Study

Anxiety Category Frequency (N=48) Percentage*

Low Anxiety 10 21Moderate Anxiety 29 60High Anxiety 9 19

the nearest number.A Closer Look at the Foreign Language Writing Anxiety of Turkish EFL Pre-service Teachers

*The percentages were rounded off to the nearest number.

M SD Min. Max.

Writing Score 59.69 15.824 5 87

Anxiety Score 67.38 13.500 26 91



The Distribution of Writing Scores in Three Anxiety Level

A significant negative (-) weak correlation between writing anxiety level and writing performance (r=-0.288, p < .05)

Sum of MeanWriting Score Squares df Square F

Between groups 856.096 2 428.048 1.765 Within groups 10912.216 45 242.494Total 11768.313 47

*p<.0



The Results of One-way Anova

Table 4 Perceived difficulties about writing in L2 Frequency(f) Percentage(%)

Inappropriate Usage and Meaning of Vocabulary 14 45 Fixed Patterns and rules of writing 7 22 Inability to express one’s thoughts in L2 5 16 Inability to generate ideas 4 12 Writing topic 3 9 Time of Writing 3 9 No Perceived Difficulty 3 9 Number of respondents: 31



Perceived difficulties about writing in L2


‘A word might have more than one meaning and I cannot decide which one to use’

‘ I have great difficulty if I cannot use a dictionary. Because I can forget even the most common words while writing’

‘ It is difficult to express my ideas effectively due to my inadequate vocabulary knowledge’

‘ I cannot be creative, cannot deviate from some certain patterns’

‘ There are lots of rules. I forget what I will write while concentrating on the rules’

Table 5 People and situations associated with writing anxiety (f) (%)

Worries about exams and grades 8 32 Lack of previous writing practice and vocabulary 5 20 Time Pressure 4 16 Rules of Academic Writing 4 16 Writing Topics 4 16 Intensive Excitement 1 4 High Self-Expectations 1 4 Teachers 2 8 Peers 2 8 No Person Indicated 21 84 Number of respondents: 25



People and situations associated with writing anxiety

‘I get more anxious in cases where writing is compulsory’

‘The pressure of completing writing on time makes me panic’

‘While sitting in the exams, I feel too much pressure on myself making me forget even the easiest words’

‘The only reason is that I have just met this kind of serious issues, for the first time in my life’


Table 6 Physical Reactions to L2 writing (f) (%) Sweating 10 35 Becoming Tense 7 25 Increase in the Heart Rate 4 14 Blushing 3 10 Handshaking 3 10 Fewer 2 7 Headache 2 7 No Physical Change 9 32 Number of respondents: 28



Table 7 Feelings About Writing (f) (%) Hesitant About the Quality of the Written Product 10 34 Self-Confident and Satisfied 9 31 Uneasy About the Topic 5 17 Nervous 5 17 Number of respondents: 29



Feelings About Writing


‘Whenever I write essays in English, I cannot help asking to myself if I wrote well and correctly or if

I would get a good grade’ ‘It is not because I don’t like writing. I have fears of

not making logical and correct sentences’ ‘It feels as if there was always something missing in

my writing. The thought of my friends writing better than me makes me nervous’

Table 8 Sharing of the Writing Anxiety Experiences (f) (%) Those who share 18 64 with a classmate 16 57 no person indicated 2 7 Those who do not share 10 35 Number of respondents: 28



Sharing of the Writing Anxiety Experiences


‘No, I haven’t shared. I don’t see any point in complaining as there is no other way’

‘I do not share because I don’t think that it will work’ ‘Yes, I frankly share. I go after my friends who are very

good in this course’ ‘I shared and I received lots of advice’ ‘With my classmates. We talk about the homework. These

are our common issues’ ‘I share with my friends. We often share the same

worries’

Table 9 The Effects of Writing Attitudes on Future Teaching (f) (%) Positive Effect 13 44 Performing writing practices eagerly 7 24 Pursuit of Academic Goals 3 10 Professional Success 3 10 Negative Effect 16 55 Number of respondents: 29



The Effects of Writing Attitudes on Future Teaching


• ‘The reason I have difficulty in writing now is that we had almost no writing instruction before university. So I definitely want to employ writing practices in the future’

• ‘I will help my students more just because I myself like writing’

• ‘I hope I will not forget the importance of writing until graduation and can impose the same on my students, too.’

• ‘The better I write, the more a successful teacher I will be’• ‘I want to work at a university. I know writing articles in

academic life is very important’

The Effects of Writing Attitudes on Future Teaching

‘How will I teach when I cannot write?’ ‘I don’t think I will write in L2 in the

future’ ‘I know that my insufficient English

writing will cause some problems in my future teaching life’.


conventional teacher-centered evaluation

versuscontemporary evaluation methods such as

peer-reviewing or self-evaluation

(Kurt and Atay, 2007; Jahin, 2012)


Pedagogical Implications

Self-evaluation (highly proficient learners)

Providing checklists or diaries to encourage self-evaluation.

Zhang (2011)



Portfolio keeping (Öztürk and Çeçen, 2007)

Guided writing techniques emphasizing the writing process and providing aid and encouragement during the writing process

(Januartini, Nitiasih and Suarnajaya, 2013)



Intervening in the writing process and using more positive reinforcement and constructive feedback to the students’ written work

Majority of the participants of this study indicated a hesitation about their written product.



Hazırlayan

Thank you for your attention and interest…

Res. Asst. Zafer SUSOY ([email protected]) Res. Asst. Seray TANYER ([email protected])

Anadolu University – Eskişehir/TURKEY

a closer look at the foreign language writing anxiety of turkish efl pre-service teachers

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