ENGLISH LANGUAGE ANXIETY

CHEVY T. TANGLAO

Literacy is one of the basic skills that a learner has to develop in order to survive in the world of work. However, English subject which is the one responsible in learning and developing one’s literacy skills is not an easy subject for many. In fact, many develop fear or anxiety by simply thinking about it. Therefore, the learners’perception and the different difficulties they encounter should be considered in planning for the teaching and learning process.

Learning English as a second language has long been of interest for teachers and educators. Everyone has tried to reduce the obstacles and difficulties in learning English. But unfortunately, few people are able to reduce these problems. Many students and teachers of English Language have always encountered with problems that did not made the full learning of this language. As the facts and evidences show our students have difficulty in learning English at different levels of education and always complain about its unclearness. Basically, the problem occurs when we do not learn the basic principles of something. This issue may happen in everything and when we refer to its origin, we see that all the problems can be resolved.

Majority of students today, particularly from rural place considers this seven-letter word as a magical and a mystical word.

The moment they hear something in English they start feel discomfort. Twelve years of school study do not make students mastery over English. While they are in schools, English is not taught properly. As majority of the students are hailed from rural areas, bilingual method is adopted in language classes. This method helps only to slow learners to some extent.

Moreover, this act reduces the real learning process as a whole. To learn English requires constant practice and patience. The kind of feeling that prevails among students is that it is not possible to achieve fluency or mastery over English language. This kind of tendency prevents students from learning English.

Most of the students study English from the examination point of view, so they are not able to produce even a single sentence without grammatical error. Furthermore, adequate practice is not given to students to learn a language.

Exposure too is far less to them. Knowledge of English is necessary if one wants to come up in life. This is all the more true where the advanced countries have opened their doors for recruiting technically qualified persons. Only those who have a command over the English language is given a job.

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The author is Teacher III at Mauaque High School