Second-language writing anxiety and its correlates: A challenge to sustainable education in a post-pandemic world

Abstract

One of the challenges of sustainable education in the post-pandemic world is students’ writing anxiety. The present study aimed to answer two key questions about writing in a second language for Arabic-English speakers enrolled in a written communication course after a return to on-campus instruction. First, it examined whether early exposure to English would predict diminished anxiety. Then, it assessed whether anxiety predicted specific writing deficits in the quality and quantity of students’ writing. Students completed a writing anxiety questionnaire, answered questions about their exposure to English and their attitudes toward English writing, and responded in writing to the query “Who am I?”. In this correlational study, overall anxiety increased with students’ later exposure to English and decreased with exposure to English-speaking media, and favorable attitudes toward English writing. Overall anxiety was linked to particular writing qualities, such as increased use of concrete words, and brevity of exposition. Yet, somatic anxiety, appraisal concerns, communication apprehension, and avoidance behaviors were differentially related to measures of English exposure and attitudes as well as to writing quality and quantity. For instance, late exposure to English writing was related to increased levels of appraisal concerns, somatic anxiety, and communication apprehension, but not to avoidance behaviors. Except for appraisal concerns, all other forms of anxiety were accompanied by decreases in word and sentence outputs and increases in the use of concrete words. Appraisal concerns were related to a decreased use of low-frequency (i.e. unfamiliar) words. Applications and implications for sustainable education in the post-pandemic world are examined.