March 2007, Volume 3

Looking Back On My Ph.D. Dissertation Project: A Summary and Reflection

by Kota Ohata

International Christian University, Tokyo

The Dissertation -- Cultural as well as Personal Aspects of Language Learning Anxiety: A Case Study of Seven Japanese Individuals’ Reflective Accounts of Language Anxiety

Experiences in the U.S.

Background

    Among a variety of affective factors, language anxiety has often been regarded as one of the most pervasive phenomena in the contexts of second language learning, “regardless of whether the setting is informal (learning language ‘on the streets’) or formal (in the language classroom)” (Oxford, 1999, p. 59).  According to E. K. Horowitz, M. B. Horowitz & Cope (1986) and MacIntyre & Gardner (1989), language anxiety is conceived as a type of state anxiety specific to the contexts of second language learning, especially in light of its unique nature of experiences deeply embedded in the processes of second language learning and performance (i.e., a great deal of vulnerability involved in trying to express oneself before others in a shaky linguistic vehicle (Arnold & Brown, 1999, p. 9).

     Certainly the phenomenon itself has been widely recognized by both second language researchers and teachers alike, but the real nature of language anxiety seems yet to be fully investigated (e.g., MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991; Young, 1991), despite the numerous findings that attest to the complexities of the phenomenon.  In reaction to the relative paucity of research that delves into the nature of language anxiety in a descriptive manner, this study employed a qualitative approach as a way of cultivating further understanding of the phenomenon.

     Such an attempt to probe the nature of language anxiety with the use of qualitative strategies has been somewhat neglected in the field of anxiety research, in favor of quantitative or correlational studies that seek to establish the relationship between the degree of language anxiety and other instructional variables such as language achievement or proficiency (e.g., Ganschow & Sparks, 1996; Koch & Terrell, 1991).

     Although such approaches to measure language anxiety in relation to language achievement or proficiency have provided much insight into the complexities of language anxiety, many of them seem to have failed to reveal a holistic picture of the phenomenon, faced with inconsistent and sometimes contradictory results both within and across studies (Young, 1991; Scovel, 1978; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope 1986).

As Spielmann & Radnofsky (2001) argues, “the inconclusiveness of research in this domain suggests that correlational studies alone will not provide a satisfactory answer and that, in fact, the most accepted working hypotheses may need revising” (p. 261).  Similarly, Gebhard (1990, 1996) also notes that human phenomena such as language anxiety, which arise from multiple causes, cannot be adequately captured in numbers, as the ways in which learners experience the phenomenon are also multifaceted in nature, reflecting their individually unique frame of reference.

     In this regard, any attempt to conceptualize human psychological phenomena such as language anxiety naturally needs to take more into account the qualitative nature of human experiences, especially when the particular emphasis of study is placed on understanding and drawing a holistic picture of the phenomenon rather than measuring the observable effects of its manifestations.

The Study

     The general purpose of this study was to describe and explore cultural as well as personal aspects of language anxiety by focusing on the episodic experiences that Japanese L2 learners of English encountered in the processes of learning a second language and culture in various socio-cultural contexts in the U.S.  More specifically, this study, adopting a qualitative case study approach, examined the Japanese participants’ reflective and interpretive accounts of their own affective experiences, as perceived significant to their lives as second language learners.

     The particular concern of this study, thus, was not to seek any correlation or cause and effect relationships, but to explore the phenomenon by providing in-depth descriptions of the participants’ experiences as perceived through their cultural as well as personal frame of reference.  In addition, by focusing on the Japanese L2 learners of English, the cultural aspects of language anxiety were revealed as to how their cultural background might influence the ways in which they would perceive the phenomenon and interpret its experiences through their “emic” point of view.  Such “emic” or insider’s perspective (Geertz, 1973, 1983), which underlies the central tenets of qualitative inquiry, was certainly emphasized through the entire research processes.

    Based on the insights gained from my own preliminary case study (Ohata, 2001)[i] on five Japanese college students in the U.S., this present study further explored the cultural dimension of language anxiety.  As the case study findings clearly indicated, the characteristics of language anxiety exhibited by the Japanese participants seemed to be quite influenced by their Japanese cultural norms or expectations that they had acquired through the numerous socialization processes in Japan. Thus, in this study, the cultural influences on the ways in which the participants perceive and experience language anxiety were further examined by focusing on the following three major questions.

1)    What are the language anxiety experiences that Japanese L2 learners of English have encountered both in and outside of the classroom settings?

a)    What kinds of events or contexts have they perceived most anxiety provoking and significant to their lives as second language learners?

b)    What are the manifestations of their anxiety (i.e., physically and psychologically)?

2)    How do they interpret their own language anxiety experiences?

a)    What are their current perspectives on language anxiety in reference to the past experiences as Japanese ESL learners?

b)    What sources or factors do they attribute their anxiety to?

3)    What meaning(s) can they draw from their own experiences of language anxiety?

a)    How have they managed to be the way they are now as second language learners, despite the numerous affective challenges they have faced along the processes (i.e., affective management strategies)?

b)    How will they continue to deal with language anxiety that they might face in the future learning processes?

Data Collection & Analysis

     In order to gain full access to the participants’ reflective accounts of language anxiety experiences, this study utilized in-depth personal/group interviews as a primary data source, combined with other supporting data[ii]obtained through group-interviews, reflective field notes or journals, or artifacts such as previously written papers and class notes from the participants. The individual interviews, each of which lasted approximately ninety minutes per session, were conducted over a full-semester period with a few-week spacing intervals between each interview (i.e., three to four interviews per person along with occasional follow-up sessions in small groups).

     In actual sessions of in-depth interviews, I employed more open-ended and less structured types of interview techniques, incorporating what Spradley (1979) called “grand tour” questions.  For example, “Could you tell me about your experiences of language anxiety during your first semester since you first came to the U.S.?”, “Could you describe any of the significant events or feelings that you think might have affected you emotionally or psychologically as a second language learner both in and out of the school settings?”, “What is it like to be anxious when you use your second language in communication?”, “Could you give me some of your own explanations or interpretations of what may have contributed to your language anxiety experiences?”, or “Could you tell me how you have dealt with language anxiety and how you would like to tackle with it in the future?”

     Such open-ended questions, unlike leading questions, were intended to provide the participants with the chance to reconstruct or reflect on their experiences in unique ways; according to their own frame of reference including their beliefs, values, and assumptions, without being guided solely by the researcher (Seidman, 1998).

     In addition to the in-depth interviews, I immersed myself in the actual lives of the participants, such as talking over a dinner together, playing tennis with them, or tutoring their homework (Malinowski, 1967/1989 as cited in Fontana & Frey, 1998, p. 56).  In other words, spontaneous conversations that naturally arose while I was actually participating in the lives of the participants provided further data sources pertinent to the focus of study as well as a foundation of rapport with them[iii].

Data Analysis Procedure

With the interactive nature of qualitative data collection and analysis in mind, this study employed the constant comparative method to analyze (make sense of) the data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). As the name suggests, this method served as a data-juggling strategy while constantly comparing and rearranging particular data segments obtained from interviews, from observation or from written documents with other pieces of data, so that salient themes and categories were inductively derived (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994).

Since all the individual/group interviews were conducted in Japanese and then transcribed verbatim, the initial data coding and sorting was administered mostly in Japanese, except actual code notations in the margins of narrative texts. To be more specific, all the transcribed narrative data were first sorted or sifted into general thematic units by using topical codes[iv], which were derived from the original research questions, followed by interpretive content analysis of the data, so that further themes or categories could emerge. Based on such processes of data coding and analysis, I wrote each of the individual case descriptions in English by linking the raw data to the emergent categories or themes, where the selected episodes or stories of the participants were translated in English. All the written drafts in English were also checked by the participants in order to ensure that the translated accounts accurately represented what they had actually said and done. Subsequent cross-case analyses, then, coincided with further interpretive processes of writing a synthesis of underlying themes encapsulated in each of the individual case reports, where I constantly referred back to the transcribed raw data for checking any occurrences of misinterpretation.

Findings

     The stories of the participants unfolded themselves while revealing their personally unique, yet culturally infiltrated, accounts of anxiety experiences, especially as to the ways of making sense out of their own emotional turmoil encountered in the processes of learning more about themselves personally vis-à-vis learning more about a second language and its culture. In other words, not only did each case report[v] represent the participants’ individually different perspectives on the phenomenon of language anxiety, but it was also laced with their cultural overtones that would speak of their shared voice or identity as the Japanese.

     As represented in each of the case study reports, the participants’ highly personal and reflective accounts of language anxiety experiences seemed to be a clear attestation to the deeply seated affective nature of second language learning, especially as it goes hand in hand with the processes of cross-cultural learning experiences, where their own cultural and personal identity would inevitably be challenged and negotiated for further self-reconstruction. In this sense, their experiences of emotional turmoil in the processes of learning a second language and culture can be viewed as a parallel to their own struggles in the processes of learning more about themselves as personal and cultural beings at the same time.

The more I came to know their emotional difficulties encountered in the midst of such learning processes, the more I was made aware of the intricate connection between culture, language, and self, just as the participants themselves may have realized along the way of their self-reflective dialogue.

The salient cultural themes that emerged through the entire research processes were 1) the concept of face and 2) the value of harmony in human relationships, and these themes were closely examined as quite relevant to the formation of their psychological conflicts or dilemmas in the midst of learning a second language and culture (i.e., needs to acculturate vs. needs to preserve one’s cultural identity).

In their daily attempts to learn to use their second language in various social contexts, differences in value orientations between the U.S. and Japan may have been brought to their consciousness as a painful realization of the gaps between “what they need or want to do and what they can actually do in their second language.” The gaps that they perceived in the cross-cultural environment, thus, had a dual impact on their psyche, in the sense that 1) things they have valued doing in Japanese cannot be expressed in English, and that 2) the more they become aware of the gaps, the more they come to realize the far distance between where they are now and where they need to go as second language learners.

In other words, the more they engaged in various social interactions in the U.S., the more they were made aware of their own psychological needs to maintain face and harmony in relationships with others in the same way as they used to do in Japan. In the desperate attempts to do so in their second language, however, they were confronted with the severe difficulties to fulfill such needs in English, often accompanied by a painful realization of the cultural gaps that lie between the ways of face and harmony maintenance in Japan and U.S. Although they had already recognized such cultural differences between Japan and U.S., they seem to have never realized the tenacious gravity of their own cultural forces until they actually experienced its impact on their emotional equilibrium. Especially in their struggles to learn to use their second language in various social contexts in their daily lives, they were made more aware of the fact that their cultural value of harmony maintenance had been a deeply ingrained part of themselves, closely intertwined with their own personal value orientations.

Such reality gaps within their mind naturally made them frustrated and anxious as they became more aware of their inner discrepancies being manifested in many of the cross-cultural encounters. In other words, the more they engaged in interactions with others in the hope of learning to use their second language in actual social contexts, the more heightened awareness of their inner conflicts or dilemmas was brought back to their consciousness as a consequence.

A sense of being caught up in a psychological dilemma, thus, seems to be a naturally plausible interpretation of their emotional turmoil. Although their experiences of emotional dilemmas can be considered as part of their personal reconstruction processes at large (i.e., in terms of cultural and personal values they attach to face and harmony maintenance), it is such self-reconstructive efforts in themselves that could further implicate their painful realizations as to the unfathomable nature of learning a second language and culture simultaneously.

I came to realize as I was immersing myself in the personal accounts of each participant the multifaceted nature of language anxiety and its experiences that would certainly reflect the individually different perceptions and interpretations of the phenomenon. The same was also true of the ways in which the participants would try to manage their inner emotional conflicts or dilemmas in the processes of learning a second language and culture. In other words, the very process of their struggles to get out of the vicious cycles of their inner dilemmas are certainly considered a reflection of their learning as a second language learner and also a clear attestation to their willingness to grow personally in terms of who they are and who they want to become as a whole person. In line with their acculturative learning processes, they may have been made more aware of themselves, and naturally more involved in the cycle of personal growth as well (Bennett, 1998).

     The niche of inner conflicts or dilemmas, thus, might not be given to them but rather created for themselves, as they go along a journey of understanding the connection between language, culture, and self, so that they can acknowledge language learning anxiety as a prelude for change and live with it in a symbiotic manner. Psychological processes of participants were further illustrated by following the stages of their change in perspective, especially as to the ways in which they had learned to live with their emotional difficulties in their own ways.

     To sum up, the psychological construct of language anxiety can be viewed not so much an inherent trait of a language learner as a complex human phenomenon, which is constructed by the learners’ cultural as well as personal frame of reference, while at the same time constantly being modified or reconstructed through the lived experiences of their own. Based on such renewed understanding of the phenomenon, some of the implications for second language learning and teaching were also drawn, especially as to 1) the powerful potential of the learners’ self-reflective capabilities in finding their own ways of managing or even living with their emotional difficulties in the processes of learning a second language and culture and also 2) the language teacher’s role in facilitating such self-directed learning processes of the students accordingly.

Reflection and the Self

     Looking back on the experience of doing my dissertation research, almost two years, I believe it was something of a luxury for me, in terms of time and space available to indulge myself in quiet self-reflection and learning. This process provided valuable opportunities to know more about myself as a second language learner, teacher, or researcher, and most importantly as a person. That is, the processes of exploration, all encapsulated in each step of doing a dissertation project, seem to have led me into the recursive cycle of self-deconstruction/reconstruction or renewal through intense self-dialogue and reflection, while critically revealing my assumptions and beliefs that underlie what I do (or then intended to do) professionally as a second language teacher and researcher. In a way, I was naturally compelled to look deeply into myself, just as the participants themselves were invited to do so along the way of interviews with me and subsequent self-reflections, as well.

     Thus, the processes of constant dialogue with myself, though often struggling with a massive amount of narrative data gathered from talking with the participants, observations, or reflective notes or field notes of my own, seem to me now a great experience of learning, especially as an interesting parallel to the processes of self-awareness or self-reconstruction.

     Certainly, the simultaneous attempt to interpret and synthesize what I learned from the entire research process was quite time-consuming, tiresome, and sometimes even nauseating, especially as it involved a lot of struggles writing in my second language, of course! But now that I look back, fortunately, I do believe it was an invaluable life experience, full of intellectual pleasure and enjoyment, despite a lot of setbacks and uneasy feelings encountered along the way.  This feeling somehow reminds me of a memorable account that one of the participants (Shouji) revealed out of his own life philosophy (Zen philosophy?) as a Japanese 40-year-old business graduate student, as he said, “Life is worth living because there is no easy way out. Seeking for it in itself is parallel to a way of living with such a reality as part of life!” Despite continuous negative emotional surges, Shouji expressed his strong will or determination to look forward instead of backward, partly out of his own pride as a 40-year-old decent adult, but mostly out of his learned belief through numerous cross-cultural experiences in the U.S. He further noted in the final interview that talking about his own anxiety experiences made him realize his perspectives and interpretations as to why he had become distressed and frustrated by himself, especially as he engaged himself in further exploring his own beliefs, assumptions, or values that would underlie such experiences of emotional turmoil:

By putting my nagging concerns into actual words, I think I was made more aware of my own struggles as a second language learner, or the fact that I was stuck more deeply than I had imagined otherwise. Although such awareness sometimes makes me shiver in bewilderment, especially when I’m in deep reflection by myself, recalling what I have said in the interviews, I feel somehow glad to be given the kind of opportunities that I could come to a stand for a while and think back on the way I was by myself, in order to take another step forward. Besides, I could see some connection between the plight that I had fallen into as a second language learner and the path that I had followed as a person. It’s like I’ve made a precious finding along the way.

     Truly resonant with Sjouji’s comment above, my sentiment toward going through dissertation research is full of feelings of gratitude that I was given such a valuable opportunity to look into myself as a second language learner and learn more about myself as a person, as well.  So here are some of my reflections and insights that I have drawn from the research findings, especially as to the issues of language anxiety in second language learning and teaching, which still seem to echo within myself as my current assumptions and beliefs that underlie what I do as a second language teacher, learner, and a scholar.

Power of Self-Reflection: As a Second Language Learner

     One of the things that I learned from the dissertation research was the powerful potential of the learner’s self-reflective awareness in second language learning, especially as a sort of self-empowerment device for managing one’s own learning. As the findings clearly indicate, the participants’ perspectives on their own experiences of emotional turmoil gradually changed or rather evolved as they learned to reflect on themselves in response to a variety of emotional incidents or experiences that they encountered in the midst of learning a second language and culture. Although often accompanied by tremendous emotional conflicts or dilemmas, the processes of one’s self-reflection and subsequent attempts to act upon it seem to further facilitate the cycle of perspective change and personal growth, as in the continuous acts of self-dialogue, “What course of action should I take?” or “How can I change myself according to my own needs?”

     Indeed, our self-reflective attempts to know more about ourselves in terms of how we have come to be as learners of a second language might further exacerbate our inner tensions or dilemmas that are already there, because our heightened awareness is unwittingly directed toward minding the normally sublimated inner gaps between what we are supposed to be able to do and what we can actually do in our second language. It should be noted, however, that the essence of self-reflection is not to be meant for tormenting ourselves by looking solely at the outcome of our learning but rather for liberating ourselves from our narrow-mindedness while positively evaluating our learning processes, in the ways that make us empowered for our further learning.  Here are two memorable accounts by the participants that clearly illustrate the point. One said:

Lately I’ve come to realize, vaguely though, that all the experiences of failure, of which I had perceived no better than a trauma, may have been necessary corner stones to make me aware of where to start, to begin with, as a kind of guiding light for my learning.

 Although I still can’t get the gloomy sense of anxiety out of my head, maybe never will be able to, but I think I need to admit that’s the reality that I have to face anyways, and also that’s not the kind of reality that I was forced to be given, but the one that I made up my mind to get myself into at my own will.

Another added:

It’s still not easy to express myself the way I am, but I find myself going that direction and it makes me feel good and liberated. That’s one of the things that I learned while living in the culturally diverse environments of the U.S.

     The significance of the learners’ self-reflective efforts, thus, seems to lie in their continuous attempts to view themselves in a self-exploratory manner, so that each of them can gain a more holistic understanding of him/herself as a whole person, and the very processes of their further self-understanding will then provide a lot of valuable personal insights that would also help them create their own ways of dealing with language learning anxiety. Consequently, such self-reflective stance toward their affective learning processes can lead to managing their own language learning, in the ways that let them grow personally as well as learners of a second language. Here is another quote from one of the participants’ (Kazuya), which also truly resonates with my own inner voice as a second language learner:

Though my English is not exactly the same as that of native speakers, I could still stay as I am, to think that I’m always changing as a second language learner, in the same way as I’m always reconstructing myself as a person.

 Perspective Change in Dealing with Student Anxiety: As a Second Language Teacher

Although the issue of language learning anxiety has often been discussed as one of the most “challenging” tasks that language teachers need to address in many of the teaching contexts that include ESL/EFL settings (Young, 1991), such a view of student anxiety seems to be a bit too simplistic, in the sense that it only reflects one-sided viewpoints of the teachers in dealing with the issue of student anxiety.

     Obviously, it is largely based upon the negative assumptions of language anxiety that suggest the teacher’s responsibility to eradicate any anxiety-inducing elements from the classroom, so that the students can be more relaxed and then more engaged in their learning tasks offered (Foss & Reitzel, 1988; Littlewood, 1984). In other words, too much emphasis is placed on the reduction of student anxiety, on the ground that there must be potentially negative side effects of language anxiety on the students’ learning.

     Deeply stuck in such negative assumptions of student anxiety, however, many of us might feel a tremendous pressure out of our responsibility as “well-informed” language teachers, while constantly reminding ourselves of the desperate needs to reduce and minimize the influence of language anxiety in the classroom.

     Indeed, it can neither be denied nor emphasized enough that one of the critical roles that language teachers can assume in the language classroom is to create a relaxing and learning conducive environment, but it seems only to place more burdens on the single shoulders of language teachers, as they feel more responsibility in the name of “caring” teachers.  In other words, such a self-complacent and overly responsible stance toward student language anxiety seems to neglect the students’ affective management capability in dealing with their own emotional difficulties (Oxford, 1990).

     Ehrman (1996) clearly points out the importance of helping the students take responsibility for themselves by citing Eugene Kennedy’s (1977) remarks on the role of counselor; “Actually, we do not have to solve problems; we only have to help other persons accept the responsibility for themselves … If we get the individual into proper focus, we will automatically get the problem into the right perspective.” (p. 13)

In this regard, the teacher’s responsibility lies not necessarily in trying to eradicate the students’ anxiety but rather in helping him learn to live with his own emotional difficulties by way of trusting in their coping mechanisms to do so. Thus, we need to remind ourselves that the students are not the ones to be helped by the teachers’ direct intervention but rather to be trusted as collaborative partners for the mutual goal of learning to live with the issue of language anxiety.

     In light of the general problem solving abilities that many of the adult students have already developed through their individually unique life experiences (Ehrman, 1996), we may not necessarily need to feel too much pressure by our sense of responsibility, but rather we can give more credit to their general coping mechanisms, or self-management capabilities that they have cultivated through a numerous variety of difficulties and hardships encountered in their own lives (Oxford, 1990). This does not mean, however, that the teachers’ role of “facilitator” in helping the students learn to live with their own emotional difficulties can be diminished, but rather that they need to accommodate another role of “collaborator”, so that both the teacher and the students can work together by respecting the different shares of their potential in the ways that both sides can equally contribute to dealing with the issue of language anxiety. The underlying theme here is, thus, concerned with our mutual engagement in what Norton (2000, p. 146) calls “the enhancement of human possibility”, in the sense that a horizon of possibility can only be cultivated or constructed by the continuous efforts of the teacher and the students to do so (Simon, 1992).

Qualitative Understanding: As a Second Language Researcher

    In the processes of trying to understand the experiences of the participants have emerged their individually unique yet also culturally infiltrated perceptions of language learning anxiety, which are naturally interwoven with my own interpretations of the phenomenon itself (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993). In other words, exploratory attempts on the part of myself were made in sync with the participants’ self-reflective efforts to understand their own experiences of language anxiety, and I certainly became more involved in a kind of collaboration with the participants, in the very sense that we had shared the same personal intent to gain a further understanding of the phenomenon for its significant relevance to our lives as second language learners. 

     Our collaborative engagement into the entire research processes, thus, can be viewed as one of the most valuable advantages of a qualitative approach over quantitative one, especially when the aim of research is placed on “understanding” more of our human phenomena rather than finding an objective truth (Merriam, 1998). Indeed, some quantitative approaches might be more efficient means of investigating the specific effects of language anxiety on other operationalized variables, for example, as to the outcomes of the learner’s achievement in language proficiency or class grades, but there still seems to be an ample need for further exploration in order to understand the complex and multifaceted nature of the phenomenon, because the human construct of language anxiety cannot be adequately described in number, nor can it be easily generalized beyond its contextual boundaries of uniqueness (Spielmann & Radnofsky, 2001).

    When the phenomenon of language anxiety is viewed as part of our various human activities, it seems rather natural that its underlying mechanisms cannot easily be defined in the ways that are amenable to scientific manipulation as advocated in the traditional positivistic research orientations, and it becomes more obviously so, especially in light of the fact that the human phenomenon itself is considered multidimensional in nature, reflecting the complexity of our human mind.

     Understanding of human phenomena, thus, seems to reside in no other place than within us; our reflective capability to look into ourselves in an exploratory manner, and the very processes of such exploratory attempts can provide us with more insights, sometimes unexpectedly, into the phenomenon as we know more about ourselves, reflecting the complexity of our human existence (Merriam, 1998; Bronowski, 1956).  In this regard, researchers should certainly be encouraged to take such an exploratory stance toward the study of language leaning anxiety, because the construct itself is truly a human-created phenomenon that also underlies and represents multidimensional nature of our human experiences.

     Finally, I would like to quote my own reflection as to the research on language anxiety as my final comment about this study:

      Engaging myself into further research on language learning anxiety would certainly be a fascinating endeavor as a professional L2 teacher and researcher, but at the same time, its significant value also seems to lie in the simultaneous processes of understanding myself as a person, while catching a glimpse of the profound nature of my human existence or raison d'être.

Notes