Writing anxiety among international students in a Thai university

Literature on writing anxiety among undergraduate students in international universities situated in English as a foreign language context remains scarce. In this study, a survey questionnaire was distributed to know the writing anxiety level of students and anxiety level differences based on nationality and locality. A total of 138 students participated using convenience sampling. Afterward, five students, based on their writing anxiety level, were purposely chosen to attend two sorting activities of statements regarding the change in their writing anxiety. Then, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted to know the factors of writing anxiety change. Descriptive results from the survey have shown that students in an international university experienced high anxiety in specific situations in writing. Also, varying writing anxiety levels were found based on nationality and locality. Findings from the sorting activity indicated that some writing anxiety-provoking situations have changed over a 2-week time frame due to some factors. Some implications for teaching were recommended to reduce writing anxiety in the classroom

Relationships of language learning variables in the acquisition of third languages in a multilingual context

This paper reinforces the importance of third language acquisition research in a multilingual context focusing on language experience, vocabulary learning strategies, emotional self-regulation strategies, and language anxiety. This study explored three languages: Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, to know if there are significant relationships between the above variables in third language acquisition. Three specific sets of survey questionnaires were distributed to various students enrolled in foreign language courses offered in a language department in a university. To focus on the relationships of language learning variables of a foreign language, correlational design was used to analyze the survey questionnaires' responses for each language course. Among students who were enrolled in Chinese, significant relationships were established between language anxiety and language experience, language anxiety, and emotional self-regulation strategies. Significant associations were found between emotional self-regulation strategies and language experience, emotional self-regulation strategies, and vocabulary strategies, and language performance and language experience for those students enrolled in the Korean language. In learning Vietnamese, significant relationships were found between language anxiety and vocabulary strategies, language performance, and language anxiety. Teachers may need to re-evaluate prepared teaching and learning materials, for example, material difficulty, to help students alleviate anxiety in learning

QR Codes Utilization in EFL Classroom: Affective Language Learning Attributes in Writing

Background:Numerous positive gains have been reported on the use of technology in language learning. The current survey of published journal articles reveals a lack of research on its integration to language teaching and learning in graduate language classrooms in EFL settings. In this study, the use of QR codes in the graduate EFL classroom has been investigated concerning its relatedness to affective language learning attributes (herein referred to as ALLAs) including anxiety, engagement, motivation, self-esteem, among others during the lesson on the process of writing. Three objectives were sought (1) to know students’ perceptions on ALLAs before and after the use of QR codes, (2) to establish the relationship between students’ perceived ALLAs and language performance, and (3) to understand specific situations that trigger positive or negative reactions.Methodology:The students were asked to indicate their perceptions concerning ALLAs by using a survey questionnaire before and after the activity. They were also asked to do the QR codes activity to create an essay outline. Further, an open-ended questionnaire was provided to indicate their negative or positive reactions to specific situations during the QR-coded activity.Findings:Results suggest the following (1) there are significant differences in the students’ perceived ALLAs before and after the activity, (2), there is a significant positive correlation between ALLAs and language performance, and (3) twelve specific situations were found to provoke dynamic ALLAs reactions.Conclusion:It is suggested that the use of available technological innovations must be introduced to graduate language teachers as its impacts on ALLAs are overwhelmingly beneficial

Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflective Practices on Teaching Positive Psychology-Driven English Lessons

Positive psychology has flourished in English language education to support students' well-being. This article aims two-fold – to examine how pre-service English teachers integrated positive psychology in their English language lessons and explore their reflective practices after the lesson implementation. Thirteen pre-service teachers were asked to individually prepare a lesson plan to demonstrate how positive psychology and language (English) are integrated. After teaching the lesson to the students, they were told to submit a journal to investigate their reflective practices. The lesson plans were grouped according to themes, while deductive coding was used to analyze the reflective journals. Fives themes were derived from their integrated lesson plans, including positive and negative emotions, negative and positive emotions, individual strengths, and character strengths and weaknesses. Concerning the second aim of the study, higher-order reflective practices were deduced on teaching (i.e., instructional awareness act), students (i.e., student’s knowledge awareness act), and self (i.e., teacher’s feeling awareness act). The findings could help teachers create lesson plans fostering positive emotions in their English classes

Exploring the reflective typology of novice EFL teachers in a Thai university

This paper presents the reflective typology elicited from the three data sets of reflective writings written by novice teachers in Thailand's university context. As part of an action research study to improve a novice teacher’s professional development, two teachers volunteered to write reflections for a semester of their assigned courses. Three data sets of reflective writings were submitted at the end of a 16-week semester. Due to our desire to provide a more meaningful interpretation of the reflective writings, grounded theory was used, resulting in two emerging themes-descriptive code, which refers to the description of a specific event in the classroom, and reflective code, which include acts in the classroom where the teacher considered an option and reflected on it. In the typology derived from our study, reflections on teaching, students, and self are common among three data sets. Moreover, the instructional act is a common specific code in both descriptive and reflective codes. The typology can be used to investigate novice teachers’ reflective acts to further their professional development

In-class and Out-of-class Anxiety when English is Used as Lingua Academia

Little research has investigated the constructs of in-class and out-of-class language anxiety in Thai universities where English is used as a lingua academia – medium of instruction in a content class and language of communication out of class. This paper reports the level of language anxiety experienced by students enrolled in full English-medium-instruction engineering programs, establishes the relationship between and among the two anxiety constructs, year level and specific and general English language proficiency, and elicits factors of in-class and out-of-class anxiety. Descriptive statistics was used to compute the extent of anxiety engineering students experienced in and out of class. Meanwhile, correlational statistics were used to explore the relationships between and among year level, language proficiency, in-class anxiety, and out-of-class anxiety. Finally, factor analysis was used to elicit factors. Data have shown that engineering students feel anxiety when English is used both in and out of class. They feel pressured to prepare well for the English-medium class in the classroom. Outside the classroom, they feel very anxious when the interlocutor seems unwilling to communicate. In addition, some significant relationships were found between variables. Factors in in-class anxiety were fear of failure, cognitive processing anxiety, lack of preparation, lack of confidence, fear of speaking, dislike of the English-medium class, negative peer evaluation, and feeling of discomfort. Meanwhile, out-of-class anxiety has three factors, including language processing difficulty, accentedness of speech, and fear of being corrected. Pedagogical implications were discussed to help alleviate students’ feelings of anxiety in in-class and out-of-class settings

Specific Anxiety Situations and Coping Strategies in Full English Medium Instruction Engineering Programs

While there is an increasing number of research studies on English medium instruction in Thailand in the university context, very few have explored the strand of foreign language anxiety. Not only that, methodological limitations exist concerning real-time anxiety reports. To broaden the research scope on English medium instruction and foreign language anxiety as well as to overcome limitations in methods, the present study used a smartwatch, journaling, and semi-structured interview to explore the specific anxiety situations and coping strategies in full English medium instruction among engineering students in Thailand. Among four volunteer participants purposely drawn from the anxiety survey, their average heartbeat per minute ranges from 72.3 to 107.8. Based on their journals and individual semi-structured interviews, several factors of specific anxiety situations found were communication apprehension, cognitive processing anxiety, the difficulty of the English medium instruction course, fear of making mistakes, lack of autonomy, perceived negative teacher acts, peer negative evaluation and test anxiety. The factor common among the participants was lack of autonomy. Further findings demonstrated coping strategies to relieve their feelings of anxiety such as preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, peer support, resignation, asking teacher’s help, translation, self-talk, being focused on task, lesson review, and metacognition. Finally, pedagogical implications were discussed to help language and content teachers address anxiety experienced by students in EMI programs

Specific Anxiety Situations and Coping Strategies in Full English Medium Instruction Engineering Programs

While there is an increasing number of research studies on English medium instruction in Thailand in the university context, very few have explored the strand of foreign language anxiety. Not only that, methodological limitations exist concerning real-time anxiety reports. To broaden the research scope on English medium instruction and foreign language anxiety as well as to overcome limitations in methods, the present study used a smartwatch, journaling, and semi-structured interview to explore the specific anxiety situations and coping strategies in full English medium instruction among engineering students in Thailand. Among four volunteer participants purposely drawn from the anxiety survey, their average heartbeat per minute ranges from 72.3 to 107.8. Based on their journals and individual semi-structured interviews, several factors of specific anxiety situations found were communication apprehension, cognitive processing anxiety, the difficulty of the English medium instruction course, fear of making mistakes, lack of autonomy, perceived negative teacher acts, peer negative evaluation and test anxiety. The factor common among the participants was lack of autonomy. Further findings demonstrated coping strategies to relieve their feelings of anxiety such as preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, peer support, resignation, asking teacher’s help, translation, self-talk, being focused on task, lesson review, and metacognition. Finally, pedagogical implications were discussed to help language and content teachers address anxiety experienced by students in EMI programs

Evidence-based Smartphone Use among Engineering Students in an Academic Writing Course

The role of smartphones is vital in academia as interconnectivity in the classroom promotes learning autonomy, increases motivation, and enhances teaching and learning mobility. Using classroom research design, this study aimed to investigate the perspectives of Engineering students of smartphone use in an academic writing course. The data were collected from students enrolled in a writing course in a top-ranked Science and Technology university in Thailand. Fifty students voluntarily submitted reflections towards the end of the semester. The study was qualitative, in which inductive coding was used. The findings elicited specific situations of smartphone use in an academic writing course, for example, knowing and looking at the meaning of words, knowing the word form, finding information, taking notes, brainstorming with friends, using translation, and others. Two roles of smartphone use were coded. The first role is facilitative, which has the following functions: resource-based, cognitive-based, memory-based, output-based, collaborative-based, entertainment-based, and communicative-based. Another is the debilitative role indicating two functions, such as sources of cognitive distraction and undesirable behaviors. Interestingly, self-regulation of smartphone use in class was coded. Implications on how smartphones can be used in teaching writing were also discussed