A STUDY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE ANXIETY AMONG SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

Foreign language anxiety represents a significant affective factor in both language acquisition and the teaching of General English and English for Specific Purposes. It has attracted considerable attention among foreign language teachers, who, through everyday interactions with students, frequently observe the relationship between anxiety and success in language learning, particularly in the quality and effectiveness of written and oral production. Although language anxiety may also occur in the use of one’s mother tongue, it is more commonly examined as one of the most important affective learner characteristics in second language learning and acquisition (Mihaljević Djigunović, 2002). This form of anxiety is defined as a situation-specific construct closely associated with foreign language use, that is, anxiety arising in communicative situations in which individuals are required to use a foreign language despite not having fully acquired its linguistic structures or achieved the expected level of proficiency (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). The main objective of the study was to investigate the level of English language anxiety among students in a secondary vocational school in Dubrovnik under formal educational conditions (N = 80). The study employs the Croatian translation of the Input, Processing, and Output Anxiety (IPOA) scales (Mihaljević Djigunović, 2002), originally developed by MacIntyre and Gardner (1994). Drawing on Tobias’s model of the effects of anxiety on learning, MacIntyre and Gardner (1994) developed the IPOA scales, which consist of 18 items designed to assess anxiety across three stages of language learning and use: input, processing, and output. The input stage refers to students’ exposure to English and instructional materials; the processing stage involves the comprehension and internalization of linguistic content; and the output stage pertains to the production of language through the use of previously acquired knowledge. The study identifies overall anxiety level and examines the highest and lowest response scores across these three stages.The findings are interpreted within the context of language instruction in secondary vocational education, taking into account its specific characteristics, including the fact that English is not the central focus of vocational training. Moreover, it is important to consider that the participants are adolescents primarily oriented toward practical training and the acquisition of vocational skills. Their exposure to English outside formal educational settings may also influence their perceptions of language anxiety. The results of this study may contribute to the improvement of English language teaching practices in similar vocational contexts, enabling educators to better recognize and address language anxiety and thereby support students in achieving greater success in learning English.