Malaysian students’ and instructors’ perceptions of anxiety-provoking contexts in English as a second language classroom

Many second language (L2) learners are affected by anxiety. Numerous studies have consistently demonstrated the negative effects of anxiety on student learning and performance. While many studies on language anxiety have typically involved learners as the participants or respondents in the research, not many studies focus on getting the instructors’ perspective on the issue. As such, this paper investigates the language instructors’ perspective on language learning anxiety in relation to their students’ perspective on anxiety. Is there a match or a mismatch between the two perspectives? 21 instructors and 233 students from a Malaysian institution of higher education took part in the study. A twelve-item questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants. Statistical analysis shows that the instructors have similar perceptions on anxiety as their students.

Anxiety, learning, teaching, second language, undergraduates

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