The Impact of Anxiety on Listening in a Foreign Language and the Ways to Overcome Its Negative Effects

Abstract

Anxiety in listening and learning a foreign language is bound to be present when one has one has, on the onehand, insufficient knowledge of the target language, and, on the other hand, does not have a relevantenvironment to master it. Teachers have a great role to help students overcome language anxiety. Teachersprovide efficient learning and help the learning outcomes boost, they contribute to creating the target languageenvironment, friendly to the student. If a teacher believes (and reveals that belief to students) that students canlearn a foreign language successfully, this triggers students’ increased self-confidence and decreased debilitatinganxiety (the so-called Pygmalion effect). In this research, two hypotheses were suggested, based on literaturereview: 1. The suggested teacher’s beliefs (student-centered, participatory, communicative, etc.) and behavior(creating a positive learning environment, establishing authoritative relations, application of pair and group work,etc.) would decrease students’ listening anxiety levels. 2. The drop in the listening anxiety would help increasestudents’ academic achievement in listening. An experiment to test these two hypotheses was held with 50 Iraqiuniversity students (25 in the experimental group and 25 in the control group). The experimental group wastaught emphasizing Pygmalion effect, while the control group – without this purposeful intervention. A pre- andpost-experimental questionnaire was held to find out whether the experimental group would demonstrate loweranxiety and higher listening skill level than the control group. The results showed that the experimental groupperformed better than the control in listening comprehension and reported lower levels of anxiety compared tothe control group. Thus, the application of Pygmalion effect can be recommended to teachers.