Sources of foreign language teaching anxiety in Serbia

Abstract

Foreign language teaching anxiety is a common characteristic of non-native foreign language teachers. It seriously undermines the teaching process and increases foreign language learning anxiety, the most detrimental affective factor in foreign language learning in general, and the development of learner communicative competence in particular. Given the rising importance attached to foreign language teaching anxiety in international literature, and based on the lack of interest in the phenomenon in the Republic of Serbia, this paper aims to identify its sources as viewed by Serbian in-service foreign language teachers. It presents the results of the inductive thematic analysis of 585 free-form textual responses to an open-ended question about the sources of foreign language teaching anxiety, which was part of a larger questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed through the social networks of foreign language teachers and sent to the e-mail addresses of primary, secondary and higher education institutions available on the Edukacija website. The results show numerous sources identified by Serbian in-service teachers, which can be grouped into six main themes: teachers, students, students’ parents, systemic problems, working and social environment, and technical issues. Each theme was further analysed, and more specific subthemes emerged, highlighting the complexity of this issue and the necessity of dealing with it. The identification of key sources of foreign language teaching anxiety in specific teaching contexts is necessary if the problem is to be overcome, because each source in itself indicates the measures that can be taken to eliminate it.