Tuesday's Tip for Language Learning #21: Affective Dissonance - Anxiety
Excerpt from Think Yourself into Becoming a Language Learning Super Star
Everyone
experiences anxiety, no matter how capable or how easy a life any person seems
to have.[1] Everyone has problems;
just scratch the surface. And problems create anxiety.
Generally,
the greatest source of anxiety comes from not having the means to resolve a
problem even if you know how to resolve it. If you cannot pay rent because your
income is too low, of course, you will feel some anxiety.
Classroom
anxiety comes from a similar source—except often the lack of means of resolving
a problem is a perceived lack, not a real lack. You are nervous about a test
because you don’t have enough time to study, but you have waited until the last
minute so you need to cram. Of course, you feel anxiety. You probably also
realize that you did not have to wait until the last minute, and next time you
can rectify it.
Some
students experience severe test anxiety. That is covered later in the section
on tests, but if you cannot wait, flip there now.
Defining anxiety in language learning
Generalized
learning anxiety, though is something somewhat different. It envelopes you like
a gray cloud all around you almost all the time, or at least when you are in
class and thinking about class. This is not normal nervousness. It is at best an
affective dissonance and at worst something for which you may need professional
help.
You
may be experiencing anxiety if any of the following conditions describe you:
· Do you feel sick to your
stomach, lightheaded, or nervous when you stand outside the classroom door
before class?
· Do you get nervous just
thinking about class?
· Do your nerves get in
the way of doing your homework?
Avoiding anxiety in language learning
Well,
honestly speaking, you probably cannot avoid all anxiety, or you would not be
human. There is a range of anxiety from a little to a lot that you can dispel.
Then, there is overwhelming anxiety, which probably involves more than just
your language classes, which you probably cannot handle alone.
To
manage anxiety associated with language learning, try some of these ideas:
· Prepare for your classes
and tests well, in advance; do a little learning every day, and you will not
have to do a lot on the night of the exam; do a little on your project every
day, and you won’t have to hurry up and finish it at the last minute and make
mistakes that you could have caught.
· Complete your
assignments early, lay them away, and go back to them in a few hours or a day;
this lets you look at them with fresh eyes to find mistakes and reinforces the
information through repetition to enter long-term memory (just in case it is
not already there).
· Get together with your
classmates for fun and study; working together takes a lot of stress out of
learning.
· Analyze what is making
you nervous (likely something you have not been able to understand in your
lessons); if that knowledge alone is not enough to help you, talk to your
teacher about getting some help or tutoring.
knowledge + preparation
= less classroom anxiety
Determine
the source of your anxiety; then, do something about it—prepare better, soothe
yourself through appropriate positive self-talk, or, where needed, get some
professional help.
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See more Tuesday tips.
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