Ansiedade na sala de aula de língua estrangeira: uma pesquisa bibliográfica

Abstract

During the process of learning a foreign language, we as teachers, notice that students develop differently in the classroom. Among several influential factors, the psychological factor is one of the factors capable of affecting the student's progress. Regarding anxiety in the foreign language classroom, this work seeks to understand the factors that influence the anxiety experienced by some students in the process of learning a foreign language and which strategies can be used by teachers to minimize this anxiety. To investigate these objectives, we used in this work, which is a qualitative and a bibliographic study in the area of Applied Linguistics, as a theoretical basis Spielberger (1977), Scovel (1978) Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) and MacIntyre and Gardner (1989, 1991, 1994). Furthermore, we analyzed the works of Thereza Jr (2011), Ferreira (2017), Ge (2018) and Figueiredo (2020) to answer our objectives. As a result of the analyses, we found that students' subjective factors, feelings of vulnerability and the way students deal with errors can interfere, positively or negatively, in the anxiety expressed in the classroom. Among the studies analyzed, oral ability proved to be the greatest anxiety generator, however, it cannot be considered the only one. According to the strategies to overcome anxiety in the classroom mentioned in the studies, we found proposals for creating a comfortable study environment, establishing trust between teacher and student, making classes more flexible and providing guidance from the teacher so students can deal better with anxious feelings in the classroom.