An Ecological Study of Foreign Language Writing Anxiety in English as a Foreign Language Classroom

Abstract

Abstract Foreign language writing anxiety is an affective response to the dynamicity within the process of foreign language acquisition which made learners brave winds of change sweeping through their emotional state as a result of what they may experience a trance-like state of flux. This investigation reports on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing anxiety based on an ecological perspective within the framework of nested ecosystem model. Current study was conducted on four upper-intermediate EFL learners, aged 14–18. Semi-structured stimulated recall interviews, teacher observation, student journal, and task-motometer were all instrumented over ten classroom sessions to provide information regarding learners’ writing anxiety which were analyzed qualitatively. Along the lines of nested ecosystem model, emerging patterns of learners’ writing anxiety were analyzed under four categories of micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems. Findings of the present study offered adequate decisive evidence supporting the fluctuating trajectories and variables concerning learners’ writing anxiety within the interaction of the individual and environmental factors.