INTERNATIONAL POSTURE, PERFECTIONISM AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY

OKON Effiong

Qatar University

28/02/2015

International Posture

Willingness to go and live (or work) in a developed English-speaking country

Perfectionism

Learners sometimes strive for flawlessness and set exceedingly high attainment goals and performance standards for themselves.

Anxious learners set themselves high personal standards, such as achieving native-like proficiency, grammatical accuracy, and pronunciation (Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002).

Foreign Language Anxiety

Anxiety manifests itself in faster heartbeat, and self-belittling (Mitchell & Myles, 2004), muscle tension, the desire to withdraw, low verbal output and nonfluency (Merritt, Richards, & Davis, 2001).

Interview and Classroom Observation

24 students in 4 universities in Japan.

14 male and 10 female participants.

Trainee teachers in 3 universities and a postgraduate class.

Sharks don’t kill us, we EAT them

Spend a Penny

Communal Toilet: Requires no maintenance

Monkey Pepper Soup

Cocoyam pottage

Research Questions

Will you live or work an English speaking country?

Does this plan affect your level of anxiety?

Do you plan to work for a multinational after graduation?

Does it affect your anxiety level in the classroom?

International Posture/Ideal Self

Perceived level of English proficiency required by multinational companies.

Inability to speak English in class discourages them from having a positive international posture.

They will also feel sad to move around in a foreign country if they cannot speak English.

“If I cannot speak English, I cannot go abroad, communicate with foreigners or live there”

“Because I can’t speak English in class, I don’t think of abroad so much”.

Perfectionism is a personality characteristic.

Fear of making mistakes.

Set themselves high personal standards, e.g. native-like

proficiency, grammatical accuracy, and pronunciation.

Anxious learners pursue ideal L2 proficiency beyond their

actual proficiency level.

Research Questions

Is it important to speak perfect English?

Is it okay to make mistakes as long as your partner

understands you?

Do you feel pressured to use perfect English all the

time, and why?

“When it comes to job or work I don’t want to mistake because I am working in

overseas organisation, so when I mistake, my mistake affect the organisation”.

“In a private conversation, it is OK, but in a lecture or as a teacher or

student of English it is not OK”.

“Ok for my partner to make mistakes, but I feel ashamed to make same mistakes”

“But she expects perfect English from her students. But I would like

her to accept all answers from students as OK. If she does this, the

class will be much better and enjoyable”.

Okon: Are you under pressure to use perfect English?

Kim-Pok: Yes, I think I feel it…but since I can’t use perfect English all the time I don’t

care.

Okon: Why do you feel the pressure then if you don’t care?

Kim-Pok: Eh… why do I feel pressure? Because if they are Japanese I can use Japanese

but if they are not Japanese, our common language is English but I should use as much English as possible.

Okon: What about Italians, Spanish and others?

Kim-Pok: Yes, I should use perfect English.

Okon: But many Europeans like the Germans or Italians don’t speak perfect English

Kim-Pok: Really!

Okon: Yes, if you went to Italy, you will hear English but not perfect one. They don’t

care but just speak.

Kim-Pok: I want to be like them.

• Conclusion• Negative self-evaluation, low self-confidence and high L2 goals account for negative

international posture.

• By raising their motivational propensity and confidence, learners could develop a more positive international posture.

• The tendency towards perfectionism contributes to the communication apprehension.

• Willingness to speak English is hampered by the assumption that they need to speak perfect English to be understood or to be considered good learners.

• The lack of awareness of how English is used in other cultural contexts.

• Appropriate error correction techniques by teachers will assure learners that making mistakes is part of discourse in any language and thereby discountenance perfectionism