ANXIETY IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION CLASS IN A UNIVERSITY SETTING.

The paper presents the results of the research conducted at the faculty of foreign languages at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University to learn the emotions of students evoked by different tasks performed during a phonetics class and investigates what can make a course of foreign language pronunciation less anxiety-generating. The source of data was learners' reactions and opinions on particular tasks they were involved in during phonetics classes. The author shares a few ideas on how the teacher can reduce the anxiety load during pronunciation classes. Although the students majoring in English at the pedagogical university are already linguistically advanced and highly motivated to achieve native-like pronunciation, some of them appear not to benefit much from phonetics classes, making very little progress in the pronunciation aspect. The cause of taking limited advantage might be language anxiety accompanying a language pronunciation class. A study was conducted among 38 third-year students of the faculty of foreign languages who had already taken a two-year phonetics course at the university by the time of the experiment. The method used in the research was a questionnaire study where the learners specified their level of anxiety on a Likert scale from 0 (indicated 'no anxiety') to 5 ('very high anxiety') next to each activity of the lesson. The participants were also asked to fill out reflection sheets to share their feelings and opinions about each task. Opinions and reflections of the learners participating in the present research showed that the most anxiety-provoking tasks presupposed theoretical knowledge, straight-forward assessment and performing in front of the others. It seems that one of the ways of lowering the anxiety level experienced by learners during a phonetics class can be ensuring that the student's ego will not be endangered during the lesson. The tasks during which the students feel most secure and claim to be able to focus on real practice are those performed in pairs and groups. Needless to say, it is also the teaching style, manner of providing feedback and correcting errors that determine classroom dynamics. What seems important is adjusting the classroom activities and pace of work to the learners' level, and thus allowing them to succeed. Finally, the learner should be shown how anxiety can be lowered and encouraged to search for strategies that for him/her are the most effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]