Anxiety and Writing Ability of Filipino ESL Learners

Abstract

The study aimed at describing how L2 anxiety of writing affected the Filipino English as Second Language (ESL) learners’ ability in writing. It also showed the anxiety rates, foremost type; then, the learners’ writing ability. Thirty-three grade 10 ESL learners participated in. The utilization of Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) which was proposed by Cheng, and a written test as one of the requirements of their subject was done for data collection. 82% of learners marked high anxiety in writing, 18% was moderate anxiety, and none was recorded low anxiety. The leading type of anxiety in writing was cognitive; then the somatic; lastly, the avoidance behavior.  In the writing ability, learners were satisfactorily rated and male and female writing ability did not significantly differ. A negatively low correlated, inverse relationship of SLWAI and performance was found between anxiety in writing and Filipino ESL learners’ ability in writing using a second or foreign language. This implies that the greater the learners were anxious in writing, the lesser the achievement that a learner may have.