Language Anxiety and its Impact on Oral Performance on EFL Classrooms The Case Study of First Year Students at Aboubakr Bel kaid University of Tlemcen

Abstract

Language anxiety is a psychological issue that occurs with EFL students at Tlemcen University. We discovered that a significant percentage of students at Abou Bekr Belkaid University of Tlemcen face this issue, which hampers their performance in Oral production sessions. This study investigated the sensations of fear experienced by Tlemcen University English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students throughout oral expression modules. It sought to determine what causes anxiety, how anxiety impacts students; English language acquisition when speaking, and how teachers might help students minimize anxiety. The environment for this study is the Tlemcen university, where most students' English competence is poor. They are typically concerned in learning English and, in particular, engaging in verbal conversation. A questionnaire was used to study the impact of anxiety on students' oral performance. Several questions were distributed to first-year EFL students to analyze their responses and measure their language anxiety. while the second research tool was a classroom observation. The observed sessions allowed us to see how students could cope with language anxiety and how teachers are responsible for reducing this phenomenon. The findings show that both students and teachers are aware of language anxiety and that a significant proportion of students have experienced it anytime they had to speak the target language, preventing them from engaging in oral classes and severely affecting their speaking abilities. The findings also offer some methods that students might use to alleviate their worries. Furthermore, their sources of anxiety mostly were from the students themselves.