A Closer Look at the Foreign LanguageWriting Anxiety of Turkish EFL Pre-service

Teachers

Zafer SUSOY Seray TANYER Anadolu University Anadolu University

zsusoy@anadolu.edu.trseraytanyer@anadolu.edu.tr

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the foreign language(L2) writing anxiety levels of Turkish pre-service teachers of EFLand the relationship between their writing anxiety and writingperformance. We also report on the participants’ underlyingperceptions, attitudes towards writing anxiety in L2 and possibleanxiety sources. 48 freshman students taking the ‘Academic Writingand Report Writing’ course at Anadolu University participated inthis study. The data were collected by means of two maininstruments; a) Second Language Writing Apprehension Inventory(SLWAI) (Cheng, 2004), b) an open-ended questionnaire. Participants’first midterm exam scores were also used as an index of theirwriting performance for correlational analysis. According to theresults of the SLWAI, 19% of the participants were found to be highanxious (HA) while 21% were labeled to be low anxious (LA), and therest (60%) were categorized as moderate anxious (MA). Correlationalanalysis result suggested a statistically significant negativerelationship between writing anxiety and writing performance. A one-way ANOVA was run to compare the writing scores of studentsdistributed to three different anxiety levels. Furthermore, theanalysis of the open-ended questionnaire uncovered the sources,associated feelings, people and situations and the perceiveddifficulties related to writing in L2.

Key Words: writing anxiety, EFL writing, writing performance

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Main Conference Topic: Language Education

1. Introduction

Anxiety has caught the attention of many scholars in

educational settings, particularly, in the foreign language

learning environments. According to Horwitz (2001), anxiety has

been one of the most investigated variables in educational and

physiological research area and she goes on stating that many

learning types can be impeded by anxiety. Cheng, Horwitz, &

Schallert, (1999) considered foreign language classroom anxiety

as a more generic type of anxiety and detected a strong

speaking component in it, whereas they pinpointed that L2

writing anxiety is a ‘language-skill-specific’ anxiety type.

The term writing apprehension (or writing anxiety as referred

in this study) was first composed by Daly and Miller (1975a).

They described it as individuals’ common recessions from both

situations and professions which demand writing and as a fear

of the consequences resulting from the negative evaluation of

their writing. There have been some studies searching the

writing anxiety’s effect on writing performance and

achievement. Cheng (2004), for example, found a relationship

between students’ writing anxiety and their weak performances

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on English writing exams and jobs involving writing. A very

short discussion about the place and weight of writing

instruction in Turkey is needed here to address the aim and the

need for this research study.

The role of English writing in Turkey can be claimed to be

strictly limited in primary and secondary public schools

although English courses are offered from kindergarten to

university. The focus of writing classes, if any, is on the

written product rather than on the writing process. The

students’ short paragraphs or occasional short essays are

grammatically corrected by the teacher and other aspects

related to the writing process are hardly ever taught. In the

tertiary level, however, the pursuit of academic goals and

interests mostly require the students write well-organized

papers either to pass the prep classes or to succeed in the

degree programs in many universities. Thus, the students are

greatly challenged by an expected high degree of writing

proficiency, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

Research investigating the link between writing anxiety

and writing performance vary from L1 settings to EFL/ESL

settings. The results generally revealed confusing and

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inconsistent correlations from negative to almost no

relationship in between. In contrast to an ampleness of studies

on L1/L2 writing anxiety documenting student populations’

anxiety experiences, there still seems to be considerable need

for further investigation into the pre-service or in-service

teachers’ writing anxiety profiles and its effect on their

writing performances as teachers play an important role in

molding their students’ ideas and attitudes towards writing

(Palmquist and Young, 1992). To our best knowledge, there have

been only a few research studies to discuss the writing anxiety

issue from the perspectives of prospective teachers of EFL in a

Turkish context (Atay and Kurt, 2006; Kurt and Atay, 2007;

Öztürk and Çeçen, 2007). Therefore, this research is aimed to

be an attempt to contribute to the related literature. The

present study investigates the second language (L2) writing

anxiety levels of Turkish EFL pre-service teachers and the

relationship between their anxiety levels and writing

performance. We also report on the perceived difficulties and

the perceptions of the participants associated with L2 writing

anxiety. The rationale beyond choosing EFL pre-service teachers

is that their voices and writing anxiety experiences might

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raise some important implications for their future teaching

practices. The research questions guiding this study are:

1) What is the level of writing anxiety of Turkish EFL pre-

service teachers?

2) Is there any relationship between the participants’

writing anxiety level and writing performance and,

3) What are the participants’ underlying perceptions and

attitudes towards writing in L2?

2. Literature Review

2.1 Defining Foreign Language Anxiety and L2 Writing Anxiety as a Variable

Anxiety as a physiological variable was defined by

Spielberger (1983) as “the subjective feeling of tension,

apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal

of the autonomic nervous system” (p.1). Foreign language

anxiety is a particular type of anxiety related to negative

emotional reactions to learning a foreign language (Horwitz,

2001). Oxford (1999) defines language learning anxiety as,

“fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to

perform in the second or foreign language” (p. 59). According

to Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) this learning anxiety is5

resulted from the learners’ weak and reliant communicative

skills in an L2. Some anxious students are worried about losing

face as a result of making mistakes and a fear of negative

evaluation and remarks (Pichette, 2009). This anxiety state

becomes even more apparent in L2 learning settings where the

speaking element or the spoken communication between learners

of an L2 was emphasized by previous studies as probably the

most anxiety provoking situation (Frantzen & Magnan, 2005;

Matsuda & Gobel, 2004; Young, 1991).

From this focus on the speaking skill capabilities of

learners and foreign language learning anxiety, a very recent

fascination emerged among many researchers who investigated

writing anxiety in a second language (Hasan, 2001; Atay and

Kurt, 2006; Kurt and Atay, 2007). Cheng et. al. (1999)

attempted to distinguish writing and speaking components and

they concluded that L2 writing anxiety is a ‘language-skill-

specific’ anxiety. Writing anxiety, by definition, is closely

related to the individuals’ conscious avoidance from the

situations, courses and professions which require writing,

additionally; it is also associated with the learners’ fear of

negative and judgmental evaluation and remarks stemmed from

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their writing (Daly and Miller, 1975a).

2.2 Writing anxiety; its relationship with writing performance and its

sources

Anxiety as an affective variable in foreign language

learning has been supposed to interfere in learning outcomes.

Liu and Huang (2011) claimed that anxiety among the other

affective variables was the strongest predictor of student L2

performance. Research investigating the link between writing

anxiety and writing performance vary from L1 settings to

EFL/ESL settings. The results generally revealed confusing and

inconsistent correlations from statistically significant and

negative correlation to almost no correlation in between. In

spite of a scarce number of studies concluding that anxiety

could be somewhat helpful or “facilitating” (Oxford, 1999;

Negari and Rezaabadi, 2012), the majority of the related past

research showed that anxiety negatively affected performance

and achievement. As an example to the “facilitating” effect of

anxiety on achievement, Negari and Rezaabadi (2012) stated that

students got higher marks from their writing in the event of a

higher anxiety environment in the final test than their

previous writing performance in the case of a low anxiety

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setting, where they were told that their writing would not be

evaluated. In a study conducted in Egypt, however, Hassan

(2001) measured the English writing anxiety levels of 132

third-year college students and compared the findings with

their performance in a 40-minute writing task in terms of

writing quality. He found that low anxious students performed

better than their high anxious peers. That’s to say, English

writing quality was negatively affected by the students’ high

writing anxiety. The role of writing anxiety in students’

writing performance was marked by Faigley, Daly and Witte

(1981). They demonstrated high anxious students’ notably

shorter and syntactically “immature” and “hesitant” essays

compared to their low anxious counterparts. Through an

objective test of writing ability, they also noted that high

writing anxiety resulted in students’ less command on usage and

writing convention issues.

Previous research also indicated that writing anxiety and

its negative effects on the performance became more apparent in

tasks under time constraints (Kean, Glynn and Britton, 1987).

In his writing anxiety scale development study Cheng (2004)

employed a timed English essay writing task as a token of the

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participants’ English writing performance to investigate the

correlations between writing anxiety types and writing

performance. The results demonstrated a significant negative

relationship between anxiety and writing performance. Writing

anxiety has been found to be negatively related to writing

performance or achievement in several ESL contexts, as well.

Masny and Foxall (1992), for example, tested and classified 28

adult learners of ESL in their writing course as low and high

achievers, then they also classified the students as high and

low apprehensive based on a writing apprehension questionnaire

given. The researchers found that low apprehensive students had

been classified as high achievers. In a correlational study

with 96 Chinese majors of English, Zhang (2011) revealed a

noteworthy negative relationship (r=-0.838) between the measure

of ESL writing anxiety and the grades of a 30 minute English

writing task.

On the contrary, Pajares and Johnson (1994) declared that

“writing apprehension was not a predictive of writing

performance” (p.313). Likewise, the results of a study with 33

international students of advanced English revealed almost no

correlation between the participants’ L2 writing anxiety

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measured by Second Language Writing Apprehension Inventory

(SLWAI) (Cheng, 2004) and their grades on three individual

writing assignments (DeDeyn, 2011). Furthermore, in a research

study Lee (2005) assigned a writing topic on 270 EFL learners

in Taiwan and used the writing scores graded by two different

raters as an indicator of writing performance. She, then,

compared the participants’ writing scores with their anxiety

level; however, she traced no association. Put differently,

students with reportedly higher anxiety did not perform more

poorly. These intricate findings exhort that the relationship

between writing anxiety and writing performance is subtle and

suggest much work to better understand the L2 writing anxiety.

As for the sources of second language writing anxiety, the

components of teaching and learning environments seem to have a

role in generating writing anxiety. Issues of time restriction,

teachers and their negative evaluation, peer effect resulting

from competition and interest in the writing subject have been

widely documented by several researchers. (Cheng, 2004; Atay

and Kurt, 2006; Lin and Ho, 2009; Zhang, 2011).

3. Method

3.1. Participants and the Research Context

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The participants of this study were 48 pre-service

teachers of English enrolled at the English Language Department

(ELT) of Anadolu University, one of the prestigious state

universities in Turkey. They were selected randomly from two

classes of ‘Academic Writing and Report Writing’ course, which

is not lectured by the researcher. 6 of the participants were

male while the remaining 42 students were female. All of the

participants were first year students between ages 18-21.

Participants of the present study were all native speakers of

Turkish and they had all studied English for 8-9 years during

their primary and/or secondary education. To enroll the

university’s ELT department, the participating students had to

pass the University Entrance Exam which is held nationwide and

has a demanding part aiming to measure the general English

proficiency of the students who want to study ELT. Upon

enrolling in the university, all the students had to pass a

proficiency exam offered by the university’s test office before

starting the four-year degree program. They were expected

either to pass this exam or attend a one-year extensive English

preparatory program provided by the university. Therefore, the

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participants of this study could be supposed to have a high

English proficiency level.

During the first year of the above mentioned four-year

degree program, where this study took place, students are given

some basic skill courses like Contextual Grammar, Academic

Reading, Speaking and Written Communication in the first year.

Students are given Written Communication and Academic Writing

and Report Writing in the first and second semester

respectively. Students in these writing courses are first

introduced to the main characteristics of an academic research

article and they, then, are expected to analyze, comment on and

summarize well written research articles from various academic

rhetorical modes. They also write well-developed paragraphs and

various essay types depending on the topics given. All in all,

students’ academic achievement mostly depends on their written

assignments and exam papers.

3.2 Materials

The data were collected through two types of materials.

The first one is Second Language Writing Apprehension Inventory

(SLWAI) (Cheng, 2004). This inventory (see Appendix A) was

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developed to measure the degree to which an individual feels

anxious while writing in an L2 and consists of 22 items which

are answered on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly

agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. The SLWAI was reported to have a

good internal consistency, with a Cronbach Alpha coefficient

reported of .91 (Cheng, 2004). The Cronbach alpha for the

present study was .907.

An open-ended questionnaire comprised of 6 questions was

also used to contribute the participants’ own voice and in-

depth perceptions about their L2 writing anxiety experiences to

the inventory data (see Appendix B). The questionnaire, adopted

from Atay and Kurt (2006) helped the researcher to gain

insightful information to understand the phenomenon. In simple

terms, the participants were asked to 1) name the difficulties

they had about L2 writing, 2) associate the L2 writing anxiety

with particular people and/or situations, 3) specify the

physical changes reacted to the L2 writing anxiety, 4) state

whether they shared their writing anxiety experiences with

anyone, and 5) explain how their L2 writing anxiety would

affect their future teaching practices. In addition, the

participants’ first midterm exam scores, achieved by writing an

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essay, were used to investigate the relationship between

writing anxiety and writing performance. The midterm papers

were independently graded by the course lecturer and the scores

were shared with the researcher for the purpose of the study.

3.3 Data Collection and Analysis Procedure

The study took place in the second term of 2012-13

academic year. The both instruments were administered

separately during the students’ regular course hour. The

students were assured that the participation would not bias

their course grades. The responses to the negatively worded

statements of the SLWAI were reversed and recorded in order for

a high score from the inventory to represent high anxiety. The

open-ended questionnaire was given in Turkish for a maximum

ease of expression to 31 students out of the total

participating sample of 48 students since some students were

absent when the open-ended questionnaire was given.

The SLWAI and the students’ writing scores were analyzed

by means of SPSS 20 for descriptive and inferential statistics.

Additionally, a Pearson Correlation Coefficient test was run to

investigate the relationship between the anxiety level and

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writing scores. Depending on their responses to the SLWAI, the

participants were divided into three anxiety levels, i.e., High

Anxious (HA), Moderate Anxious (MA), and Low Anxious (LA).

Participants who scored one standard deviation below or above

of the mean score (M=67,37, SD=13.5) were respectively considered

to be low and high anxious. The rest were assumed to have a

moderate anxiety. Lastly, a one-way ANOVA was run to compare

the writing scores of students distributed to three different

anxiety levels and to explore whether the anxiety level has an

impact on writing performance.

To analyze the qualitative data collected from the open-

ended questionnaire, pattern coding strategy was used as

suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). The open-ended

questions were viewed as the main categories. Then, all the

responses to each open-ended question were thoroughly read more

than once to familiarize with the emerging contradictory or

consistent patterns. By doing so, the researcher managed to

establish possible codes that are related to the category. For

example, the first open-ended question asked the participants

to write the difficulties they face during writing in L2, thus

the first category was named ‘perceived difficulties about

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writing in L2’. Then, student responses like ‘The only difficulty for

me is my scarce knowledge of vocabulary’ or ‘not remembering the necessary,

suitable word’ was coded in the “inappropriate usage and meaning of

vocabulary” category. In this way, six categories and 33

emerging codes were constructed. Finally, the frequencies and

percentages were calculated across the number of respondents

who were included in the same code and category. The results

were tabulated to be summarized (see Appendix C). To confirm

the reliability, a colleague of the researcher independently

analyzed the data. An inter-rater reliability (89%) was

established in terms of frequency agreement rate and

disagreements were resolved through discussion. Moreover,

English verbatim translations of the students’ statements were

presented in the form of quotations to exemplify the findings.

4. Results

4.1 Results of the Inventory

As for the RQ1, Turkish EFL pre-service teachers’ writing

anxiety level was identified using descriptive statistics.

Referring to the participants’ scores on the SLWAI, three

groups of anxiety level were presented as in the Table 1. There

existed 10 Low Anxious (LA) pre-service teachers, scoring one

or more standard deviation below the mean score and consisted

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of 21% of the all participants. 19% of them whose mean scores

were one or more standard deviation above the mean were

regarded as High Anxious (HA) while the rest whose scores range

from 53.87 to 80.87 were categorized as Moderate Anxious (MA).

Table 1: Numbers and Percentages of Participants in Three Anxiety Categories

Anxiety Category Frequency (N=48) Percentage*Low Anxiety 10 21Moderate Anxiety 29 60High Anxiety 9 19 *The values were rounded off to the nearest number.

As for RQ2, in order to examine the relationships between

Writing Scores (M=59.69, SD=15.824) of Turkish EFL pre-service

teachers and their Writing Anxiety Level (M=67,37, SD=13.5),

Pearson’s r correlation analyses was conducted. The results

revealed that there existed a significant negative weak

correlation between writing anxiety level and writing

performance (r=-0.288, p < .05). It means that while the anxiety

level of the pre-service teachers increase; their writing

scores have a tendency to decrease.

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Anxiety and Writing Score

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M SD

Min. Max.Writing Score 59.69 15.824 5

87Anxiety Score 67.38 13.500 26

91

Figure 1. The Distribution of Writing Score Means in Three

Anxiety Levels

Low Anxiety Moderate Anxiety High Anxiety010203040506070

66.559.38

53.11

Table 3. Summary of ANOVA

Sum ofMeanWriting Score Squares dfSquare FBetween groups 856.096 2

428.048 1.765

Within groups 10912.216 45

242.494Total 11768.313

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*p<.05

The descriptive statistics (Figure 1) indicated mean score

differences for three different anxiety levels Low Anxiety

(M=66.50, SD=23.330), Moderate Anxiety (M=59.38, SD=13.513),

and High Anxiety (M=53.11, SD=10.612), The results of the one-

way ANOVA (Table 3), however, indicated that there is not a

statistically significant difference (F(2,45):1.765, p=.183)

among the writing scores of three groups of pre-service

teachers from three different anxiety levels. For this reason,

these mean score differences were not found to be generalizable

to the population.

4.2 Results of the open-ended questionnaire

In the first question, the students were asked to state

the difficulties faced during writing in English. Among the

difficulties faced in the writing process, ‘inappropriate usage

and meaning of vocabulary’, difficulties resulted from the

‘fixed patterns and rules of writing’, and ‘inability to

express one’s thought in L2’ were found to form the main

challenges in L2 writing as summarized in Table 4.

Table 4 Perceived difficulties about writing in L2 Frequency(f) Percentage(%)

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Inappropriate Usage and Meaning of Vocabulary 14 45Fixed Patterns and rules of writing 7 22Inability to express one’s thoughts in L2 5 16Inability to generate ideas 4 12Writing topic 3 9Time of Writing 3 9No Perceived Difficulty 3 9Number of respondents: 31

The following statements exemplify the difficulties in L2 writing;

‘A word might have more than one meaning and I cannot decide which one to use’

‘ I have great difficulty if I cannot use a dictionary. Because I can forget even the most common words while writing’

‘ It is difficult to express my ideas effectively due to my inadequate vocabulary knowledge’

‘ I cannot be creative, cannot deviate from some certain patterns’

‘ There are lots of rules. I forget what I will write while concentrating on the rules’

The second question aimed at the situations and people

that the students associated with their writing anxiety. As can

be seen in Table 5, writing anxiety was mostly attributed to

fear of negative evaluation, lack of previous writing practice

and again lack of vocabulary.

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Table 5 People and situations associated with writing anxiety

(f) (%)

Worries about exams and grades 8 32Lack of previous writing practice and vocabulary 5 20Time Pressure 4 16Rules of Academic Writing 4 16 Writing Topics 4 16 Intensive Excitement

1 4High Self-Expectations

1 4Teachers 2 8Peers 2 8No Person Indicated 21 84Number of respondents: 25

In the following verbatim quotations, students stated that

evaluation environments, time limitations and lack of past

writing experience provoked anxiety. They wrote; ‘I get more

anxious in cases where writing is compulsory’, ‘The pressure of completing writing on

time makes me panic’, ‘While sitting in the exams, I feel too much pressure on myself

making me forget even the easiest words’, ‘The only reason is that I have just met

this kind of serious issues, for the first time in my life’

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Two students indicated that their peers’ comments and

performances also play a role in provoking their anxiety while

another two mentioned the teacher effect;

‘I feel myself physiologically incapable since many others say that writing courses are one of the most difficult courses’

‘Seeing my friends writing on their exam papers full to the brim makes me anxious’‘Teachers walking around in the exams, especially when I catch their eyes’

‘Sometimes, the teachers’ frightening approaches’

In the third question, we aimed to find out the physical

changes occurring in the case of anxiety. Table 6 shows the

students’ physical reactions while experiencing anxiety in the

event of writing in L2.

Table 6 Physical Reactions to L2 writing (f) (%)Sweating 10 35Becoming Tense 7 25Increase in the Heart Rate 4 14Blushing 3 10Handshaking 3 10Fewer 2 7Headache 2 7No Physical Change 9 32Number of respondents: 28

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The fourth question aimed at finding out how the students

felt during writing in L2. As can be seen in Table 7, 10 out of

29 participants stated hesitation about their writing. On the

other hand, 9 students marked that they felt satisfied and

self-confident during and after their writing.

‘Writing in a foreign language sounds like a privilege’

‘I get self-confidence. I feel that I know something and I can use my

knowledge’

‘I am a little nervous before starting. However, I can generally write with ease.

Seeing that I can write creates a driving force’

‘Understanding another language and writing in it shows me that I can

succeed even further’

Table 7 Feelings About Writing (f) (%)Hesitant About the Quality of the Written Product 10 34Self-Confident and Satisfied 9 31Uneasy About the Topic 5 17Nervous 5 17Number of respondents: 29

Some students conceived several doubts and worries about

their writing and the resulting consequences such as the grade

of their writing or the accuracy and the quality of their

writing.

‘Whenever I write essays in English, I cannot help asking to myself if I wrotewell and correctly or if I would get a good grade’

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‘It is not because I don’t like writing. I have fears of not making logical andcorrect sentences’

‘It feels as if there was always something missing in my writing. The thought ofmy friends writing better than me makes me nervous’

In the fifth question, the students were asked whether

they shared their writing anxiety experiences with anyone. As

can be seen in Table 8, 10 out of 28 participants noted that

they did not share their experiences with anyone. 18

participants, however, indicated that they usually shared the

issue with a classmate.

Table 8 Sharing of the Writing Anxiety Experiences (f) (%) Those who share 18 64 with a classmate 16 57 no person indicated 2 7Those who do not share 10 35Number of respondents: 28

Those who do not share their anxiety experiences on L2

writing generally think that sharing is not useful as quoted

below;

‘No, I haven’t shared. I don’t see any point in complaining as there is no otherway’

‘I do not share because I don’t think that it will work’

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Those who share their writing anxiety experiences stated

that they do so on the grounds of receiving support and aid,

especially from their classmates. This notion is exemplified in

the statements below;

‘Yes, I frankly share. I go after my friends who are very good in this course’

‘I shared and I received lots of advice’

Students share their worries with their classmates as they

consider the classmates as having the same worries and thus,

understanding.

‘With my classmates. We talk about the homework. These are our commonissues’

‘I share with my friends. We often share the same worries’

In the last question, we asked the participants to write

how their attitudes towards writing in L2 would affect their

future teaching practices. As can be seen in Table 9, 13 of the

29 respondents mentioned an expected positive effect,

particularly in their professional life as a teacher and in

pursuing academic goals. 7 respondents stated that they would

employ more writing activities with their future students than

they had been offered in their primary or secondary level of

education. The respondents (n=16) who implied an anticipated

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negative effect in the future did not specify their comments,

thus could not be specifically categorized.

Table 9 The Effects of Writing Attitudes on Future Teaching (f) (%)Positive Effect 13 44 Performing writing practices eagerly 7 24 Pursuit of Academic Goals 3 10 Professional Success 3 10Negative Effect 16 55 Number of respondents: 29

Some verbatim quotations exemplify the respondents’ views

as to how their attitudes towards writing in L2 could possibly

affect their future teaching practices;

‘The reason I have difficulty in writing now is that we had almost no writinginstruction before university. So I definitely want to employ writing practices inthe future’

‘I will help my students more just because I myself like writing’

‘I hope I will not forget the importance of writing until graduation and canimpose the same on my students, too.’

‘The better I write, the more a successful teacher I will be’

‘I want to work at a university. I know writing articles in academic life is veryimportant’

Those who reported a negative effect informed such

comments as ‘How will I teach when I cannot write?’, ‘I don’t think I will write in L2

26

in the future’ or ‘I know that my insufficient English writing will cause some problems

in my future teaching life’.

5. Discussion and Conclusion

The main purpose of this study has been to investigate the

second language (L2) writing anxiety levels of Turkish pre-

service teachers of EFL and the relationship between their

writing anxiety and writing performance. We have also reported

on the participants’ underlying perceptions, attitudes towards

writing anxiety in L2 and possible anxiety sources. The overall

results of this study have been found to be both in line and in

contradiction with the related literature. The hypothesis that

writing anxiety would negatively affect the writing performance

has been slightly supported, whereas the perceptions, sources

and reactions about writing anxiety strongly accorded with the

literature.

The Second Language Writing Apprehension Inventory

(SLWAI) (Cheng, 2004) was used to quantify the participants’

(n=48) writing anxiety level (M=67,37, SD=13.5), and to group

them as low, moderate and high anxious students. As the next

step, we conducted Pearson’s r correlation analyses between the

whole sample’s writing anxiety level and the midterm grades

27

achieved by writing an essay in the ‘Academic Writing and

Report Writing’ class. The grades (M=59.69, SD=15.824) were

reckoned as an indicator of writing performance. The results

suggested a statistically significant negative correlation (r=-

0.288, p < .05). In other words, it seems that writing grades

are likely to drop when or where writing anxiety is high. In

fact, these findings are consistent with a sum of previous

research which reported negative correlation between writing

anxiety and writing performance both in EFL and ESL contexts

(Kean et.al, 1987; Masny and Foxall, 1992; Hassan, 2001; Cheng,

2004; Zhang, 2011).

Furthermore, we ran a one-way ANOVA to find out whether

the writing scores within the three anxiety levels would

suggest a statistically significant difference. The analysis,

however, revealed no statistical difference (F(2,45):1.765,

p=.183). Thus, the weakness of negative correlation, though

statistically significant, found within the whole sample was

confirmed. The result of this further analysis is not

surprising considering the contradictive nature of writing

anxiety’s impact on writing performance. There are several

research studies documenting almost no relationship between

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writing anxiety and writing performance. (Pajares and Johnson,

1994; Lee, 2005; DeDeyn, 2011).

The participants reported that they had difficulty in

finding and using the appropriate vocabulary items while

writing in English. Feeling tense and consequently sweating

were the most rated reactions. In addition, worries about the

negative evaluation in the exams and the lack of previous

writing practice were indicated to be the primary sources of

writing anxiety. Majority of the participants responded that

their writing anxiety would have a negative effect on their

future teaching practices, such as avoiding from teaching

writing. These findings are in parallel with several previous

research (Cheng, 2004; Atay and Kurt, 2006; Lin and Ho, 2009;

Zhang, 2011).

6. Pedagogical Implications and Limitations

Based on the results of the current study and the previous

studies, we would like to propose some recommendations to

reduce writing anxiety in EFL classrooms. Firstly, the

participants of this study pointed ‘exams and grades’ and ‘lack

of previous writing practice and vocabulary’ as a strong source of

29

writing anxiety. Thus, the conventional teacher-centered

evaluative environment in the classroom should be replaced by

other contemporary evaluation methods such as peer-reviewing or

self-evaluation (Kurt and Atay, 2007; Jahin, 2012). The

participants in this study stated that they preferred their

peers to share their writing anxiety experiences since they all

shared the same or similar worries. However, it should be noted

that training students on peer reviewing is of considerable

importance, otherwise the peer comments can be ambiguous and

negative (Zhang, 2011). Zhang (2011) goes on recommending self-

evaluation, particularly with highly proficient learners as in

this study, as a way to reduce writing anxiety. Therefore, the

writing teachers should provide checklists or diaries to

encourage self-evaluation.

Secondly, writing teachers should attempt portfolio

keeping (Öztürk and Çeçen, 2007) or guided writing techniques

(Januartini, Nitiasih and Suarnajaya, 2013) which emphasize the

writing process and provide aid and encouragement during the

writing process. Thirdly, writing teachers should frequently

intervene in the writing process and use more positive

reinforcement and constructive feedback to the students’

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written work since majority of the participants of this study

indicated a hesitation about their written product.

We should note that the results here are restricted to the

participants of this study for some reasons; therefore, one

should be careful in drawing certain conclusions. First of all,

the convenience sampling of the study may not be sufficient to

generalize the results to wider populations and settings.

Writing anxiety should be investigated with a greater number of

participants for statistically meaningful findings.

Alternatively, grades from final exams can also be added into

analysis for further and richer interpretations. Secondly, the

participants wrote their essay in a midterm exam, thus some

variables like test anxiety should be controlled in future

studies. Notwithstanding its exploratory character, this study

may suggest some insight into understanding the relationship

between writing anxiety and writing performance from the

perspective of Turkish pre-service teachers of EFL, in other

words, from the perspective of advanced learners of English.

31

Zafer Susoy is a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant in theDepartment of English Language Teaching at Anadolu University ofTurkey. He is now continuing his master degree program. His researchinterests are foreign language writing, teacher training, andreflection in the classroom.

Seray Tanyer is a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant in theDepartment of English Language Teaching at Anadolu University ofTurkey. She is now writing her Master’s Thesis on self-evaluation inEFL writing classroom. Her research interests are in foreignlanguage writing, corpus linguistics, language assessment, andteacher training.

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Appendix A: Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory

Your Name (Please fill in)……………………………

Gender: Male / Female Age: …….…..

Read the statements below very carefully. For each statement, amongthe choices (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5), put a tick (✓) under themost suitable one for you. We kindly request you be honest whileanswering the questions.

Thank you for your participation…

35

(1) SD : I Strongly Disagree

(2) D : I Disagree

(3) NSF: I have No Strong Feelings either way

(4) A : I Agree

(5) SA : I Strongly Agree

(1)SD

(2)D

(3)NSF

(4)A

(5)SA

1. While writing in English, I am not nervous at all.2. I feel my heart pounding when I write Englishcompositions under time constraint.3. While writing English compositions, I feel worriedand uneasy if I know they will be evaluated.4. I often choose to write down my thoughts in English.5. I usually do my best to avoid writing English

compositions.6. My mind often goes blank when I start to work on an

English composition.7. I worry that my English compositions are a lot worse

than others.8. I tremble or perspire when I write English

compositions under time pressure.9. If my English composition is to be evaluated, I wouldworry about getting a very poor grade.10. I do my best to avoid situations in which I have to

write in English.11. My thoughts become jumbled when I write Englishcompositions under time constraint.12. Unless I have no choice, I would not use English to

write compositions.13. I often feel panic when I write English compositions

36

under time constraint.14. I am afraid that the other students would deride myEnglish composition if they read it.15. I freeze up when unexpectedly asked to write English

compositions.16. I would do my best to excuse myself if asked to

write English compositions.17. I worry at all about what other people would thinkof my English compositions.18. I usually seek every possible chance to writeEnglish compositions outside of class.19. I usually feel my whole body rigid and tense whenwrite English compositions.20. I am afraid of my English composition being chosenas a sample for discussion in class.21. I am afraid at all that my English compositionswould be rated as very poor.22. Whenever possible, I would use English to write

compositions.

Appendix B: Open-ended Questionnaire (adopted from Atay and Kurt,

2006)

1. Do you experience any difficulties while writing in L2? If

yes, what are they?

37

2. Name the situations and people connected with your writing

anxiety.

3. What kind of physical changes occur while you are writing in

L2?

4. How do you feel when writing in L2?

5. Have you shared your experience of writing anxiety with

anyone?

6. How do you think your attitudes towards L2 writing will

affect your future teaching

practices?

Appendix C: Overall Summary of Open-ended Questionnaire

Perceived difficulties about writing in L2

Frequency(f) Percentage(%)*

Inappropriate Usage and Meaning of Vocabulary 14 45Fixed Patterns and rules of writing 7 22Inability to express one’s thoughts in L2 5 16Inability to generate ideas 4 12Writing topic 3 9Time of Writing 3 9

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No Perceived Difficulty 3 9

People and situations associated with writing anxiety

Worries about exams and grades 8 32Lack of previous writing practice and vocabulary 5 20Time Pressure 4 16Rules of Academic Writing 4 16 Writing Topics 4 16 Intensive Excitement 1 4High Self-Expectations 1 4Teachers 2 8Peers 2 8No Person Indicated 21 84Physical Reactions to L2 writing

Sweating 10 35Becoming Tense 7 25Increase in the Heart Rate 4 14Blushing 3 10Handshaking 3 10Fewer 2 7Headache 2 7No Physical Change 9 32Feelings About Writing

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Hesitant About the Quality of the Written Product 10 34Self-Confident and Satisfied 9 31Uneasy About the Topic 5 17Nervous 5 17Sharing of the Writing Anxiety Experiences

Those who share 18 64 with a classmate 16 57 no person indicated 2 7Those who do not share 10 35The Effects of Attitudes Writing on Future Teaching

Positive Effect 13 44 Performing writing practices eagerly 7 24 Pursuit of Academic Goals 3 10 Professional Success 3 10Negative Effect 16 55 * Percentages were rounded off to the nearest numberNote. Participants might have commented on more than one category.

40