Non-native foreign language teachers are expected to be active speakers of the target language and to teach in it (Horwitz, 1996). The study focuses on understanding the lived experiences of pre-service Kazakh teachers in relation to FLTA. As FLA occurs in the foreign language classroom, it is usually experienced by non-native speakers.
Therefore, it is important to conduct more research to understand the effects of FLTA. The data analysis, the study's limitations and its ethical issues are also presented. This chapter provides information on the methods used to investigate the phenomenon of foreign language learning anxiety (FLTA) for non-native pre-service English teachers, which was the purpose of the current phenomenological study in the Kazakh context.
In other words, it supports the claim that the results of the study can be trusted. Transferability indicates whether the results of the study can be used in other contexts (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This chapter presents the results of the study which investigated the phenomenon of foreign language teaching anxiety (FLTA) in non-native pre-service English teachers.
In the fourth section, the structural description together with the essence of the.
Feeling Insecure about Teaching
As a result of the data analysis, four subthemes related to Theme 1 “Feeling insecure about teaching” were identified: (1) lack of experience, (2) sense of responsibility, (3) communication apprehension, and (4) personality. Therefore, it is difficult for future teachers to monitor students in the classroom due to their inexperience. Moreover, most teacher candidates experience difficulties at the beginning of their teaching career.
We only get theoretical knowledge here, but we do not have an opportunity to practice teaching in front of the audience, so when we are in a real class, it is difficult to adapt. To summarize, inexperience in teaching is one of the major obstacles hindering effective teaching of teacher candidates. I notice all the emotions and if I notice one or two faces showing negative emotions, if I think they are bored or don't understand something, I feel that it is my fault.
We can see it from Gulzhan's explanation: "If your students don't understand your explanation, it's not their fault, it can be yours. Along with sense of responsibility, communicative understanding is also one of the sources of teaching anxiety. Despite that the fact that the participants in this study take special courses to improve their speaking skills, it was identified that communicative understanding is one of the sources of their teaching.
For three participants in the study, speaking in front of the class is a source of anxiety as they feel that they are giving a public speech. Although it is not too big, a class is an audience for me, so even there I feel stressed because I am not Kairat Nurtas [a famous local singer] who is too confident and who is used to perform in front of an audience. For example, Gulzhan explained, "I'm not confident in speaking English because it's not my mother tongue, and I get stressed when I have to both speak and teach others."
All but one of the participants mentioned their personality as a problem during teaching. In the extract above, the participant noted that those who are self-confident find it easier to work with new people, indicating that less self-confidence is a problem. I'm very shy and that's why I get stressed when I'm teaching or performing.
Worrying about Proficiency in English
Of course, it has a negative impact on both taking exams and teaching." Thus, it can be seen that future teachers experience uncertainty in teaching due to the personality of the participants. In addition, inexperienced beginning teachers are likely to experience stress from unexpected questions from students. Prospective teachers' feelings of incompetence due to their limited language skills and their anxiety over unexpected questions from students will be described separately in the next two sub-themes below.
Feeling incompetent due to limited language skills is directly related to the unchanging theme of “worrying about proficiency in a target language.” When you are aware of your incompetence, you don't want others to notice and worry about it. Two participants Zhanna and Dana noted that they experience discomfort when they do not pronounce words correctly. Dana explained: “I feel anxious about my own knowledge as I am not good at English.
I can't explain the subject to my students.” As shown in this excerpt from the interview with Aigul: “I admit that I don't. That's why I worry about the moments when students ask something I don't know.” From this quote, we can see that Aigul is not confident in her language skills, like other participants, and this leads them to worry about teaching it. She commented: “How can I check if I'm not sure if it's right or not.
That's why I usually try to do speaking activities and discussions because I'm very good at speaking." From Dana's description it can be seen that teachers try to teach what they want and what they can, but not what they should. Therefore, it can be concluded that prospective teachers consider themselves not proficient enough in English to teach it to others, and this causes anxiety and stress. Makpal noted: “I was stressed during the lesson, even though I am prepared because students might ask something that I have not prepared.
I don't understand what is happening to me, it's like an "explosion inside me". This excerpt from an interview with Marzhan says that she is very worried about not being able to explain to the students what they want to know. Thus, we can conclude that, despite being well prepared, teacher candidates feel anxious during teaching because they cannot anticipate the questions that students might ask.
Experiencing a Fear of Negative Evaluation
What others think of their teaching skills is one of the concerns pre-service teachers experience while teaching, and all study participants noted this. She explained: “The mentors, I mean the school's English instructors are usually in the classroom when we offer lessons. In the following chapter, I provide the textural description of the investigated phenomenon according to the steps suggested by Moustakas (Patton, 2015).
The textural description is a written description of "what" the participants in the study experience in relation to the phenomenon (Creswell, 2013, p. 193). The findings of the study considered the research question "How are FLTA experienced by non-native pre-service English teachers?" based on the theory of foreign language anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986) and Moustakas' phenomenological approach (Moustakas, 1994; Patton, 2015). This chapter presented the findings of the study to understand how FLTA is experienced by non-native pre-service English teachers.
One of the main findings of this study was that pre-service teachers tend to feel insecure about teaching. It is worth noting that one of the participants in this study reported feeling stressed at the beginning of the lesson due to lack of experience, a finding similar to Aydin's (2016) study, which. Overall, the First Invariant Theme indicates that non-native pre-service teachers feel insecure in teaching and these findings are consistent with the results of studies conducted in different contexts.
As mentioned above, foreign language teachers are expected to be proficient users of the target language (Horwitz, 1996). Thus, it is common sense that pre-service teachers care about the teaching process and their grades, as they will be assessed at the end of the teaching practice. This chapter presents the summary of the study presented here with the aim of investigating the phenomenon of foreign language learning anxiety (FLTA) of non-native pre-service English teachers in the Kazakh context.
Finally, it was identified that as a result of the school management's visits to the classes and because of their peers, mentors and students in the class, preschool teachers experience a fear of negative evaluation. The results of the study were discussed in relation to the previously conducted studies and the study's theoretical framework. The essence of the FLTA phenomenon for non-native pre-service English teachers was found to be a feeling of insecurity about teaching, to worry about proficiency in English and to experience a fear of negative evaluation.
This section presents the study's recommendations for teacher education programs, mentors, and pre-service teachers. As one of the participants noted, novice teachers have theoretical knowledge of teaching methods, but lack of teaching practice.
