Students’ Level of Anxiety Towards Learning English as a Foreign Language: Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the level of anxiety among Yarmouk University students in Jordan/Irbid and to investigate if there are any statistically significant differences in anxiety level attributed to gender. The sample of the study consisted of 280 students (150 females and 130 males) who were enrolled in English Language service courses Eng 99, Eng 101 in the second semester 2016/2017. The researcher adopted a scale to collect data and to achieve the goals of the study .The instrument had 33 items on required multiple choice answers with a five-point Likert scale. The results show that the participants generally had a feeling of anxiety in learning English. They experienced Test Anxiety and Fear of Negative Evaluation. Moreover, the results show that there are statistically significant differences in anxiety level attributed to gender in favor of male students.The researcher recommends conducting further studies that focus on developing anxiety free classroom environment during teaching English as a foreign or second language.