English Writing Anxiety: Alleviating Strategies

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in investigating the effects of second/foreign language writing anxiety on the learners’ writing performance and attitudes over the last three decades, the potential sources of that phenomenon have not been widely researched and identified. Hence, the original study with its mixed approach design mainly explores and investigates the potential factors associated with writing anxiety and the strategies for alleviating it among the English language learners in Emirati universities. A total of one hundred and ten students in addition to six English language instructors were the study's participants. Quantitatively, two survey questionnaires and students’ writing scores were used to investigate the anxiety levels, effects and sources. For the qualitative phase, ten highly anxious students and ten low-anxious ones were individually interviewed to deepen understanding about the possible sources of their anxiety and the strategies they use to mitigate its detrimental effects. Additionally, a focus group discussion with the instructors was held to explore their perspectives on the coping strategies they use and suggest to reduce the levels of anxiety in writing classes. The findings indicate that high levels of writing anxiety could primarily be attributed to writing tests, cognitive and linguistic factors. This article mainly sheds light on the findings that reveal how various affective, cognitive, linguistic, and pedagogical mitigating strategies and the low-anxious students and participant instructors to lower the writing anxiety levels can use tactics.

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