Chapter 10 – Facing Fears and Finding Opportunities
“Hitting a Wall”: What to Do about Anxiety and Motivation?
Faith Adler; Bibi Halima; and Keli Yerian
Preview Questions
- What is second language anxiety and how can we try to overcome it?
- What does it mean to hit a language plateau?
- How can we stay motivated to continue learning a language?
We addressed many language learning myths throughout the text, but we want to address one more with you here to close: the myth that language learning can be quick and easy. You’ve likely seen the “Learn a language in JUST A WEEK!” style articles and videos, and as nice as it would be if it were true, it isn’t quite so simple. You’ll go through many ups and downs as you go through the experience of language learning. Some days, you’ll be able to focus on the language for hours without issue, and the next you might struggle just to keep your Babbel or Duolingo streak going. It can be easy to get discouraged with a process that moves so slowly in a world that demands instant gratification.
Think back
Do you recall the fixed and growth mindsets discussed in Chapter One? Learning a language can sometimes feel like a slippery slope. Just when you think you’ve memorized all the vocabulary you need to talk about something you love, you might stumble to recall vocabulary as you try to talk about it later with a friend. It can be easy to become discouraged and fall into a fixed mindset. However, adoption of a growth mindset can help us to engage in the metacognitive cycle and trust that success will come with time.
Second Language Anxiety
We’re all familiar with the feeling. You rehearse what you’re going to say a hundred times in your head before you go up to the counter to order a coffee, but when you actually get there no words come out. Or the teacher begins calling on students to translate sentences on the board, and you feel your stomach drop. As language learners, we’ve all faced countless situations where we’ve known what we’re supposed to say but when the time comes the words just won’t come out or our mind seems to go blank.
Anxiety is our mind’s way of preparing us for negative consequences (such as negative judgement from others or our inability to express ourselves) that may or may not occur in the near future. Anxiety is our body’s way of protecting us from situations that it interprets as dangerous or unpleasant. However, in the case of L2 learning, anxiety can negatively impact us as learners and be detrimental to our growth.
Papi and Khajavi (2023) tell us that Second Language Anxiety can lead language learners to freeze up, tremble, or sweat when they need to perform in their second language. Despite how it may feel, you are not alone in any Second Language Anxiety you may experience. So how can we overcome this feeling?
First, we should ask ourselves what are the contexts in which we experience the highest levels of Second Language Anxiety. Think, do you feel anxious when you are talking to a friend casually? When submitting an essay? Ordering at a restaurant? Next, we can break this down to look at what it is about those situations that makes us anxious. Is it the spontaneity? Is it speaking in front of others? Is it the lack of two-way communication?
By diving a little deeper into what it is about languaging in our L2 that makes us nervous, we can take baby steps to increase our confidence and decrease anxiety slowly over time. For example, we can begin to implement strategies such as adopting a growth mindset (Chapter 1) or incorporating metacognition (Chapter 5) in order to help us visualize future plans and manage feelings of nervousness or anxiety around languaging. Throughout this book, we have been providing ways of adjusting how you think about language learning and adopting specific learning practices and strategies to stay motivated and reduce anxiety. You can tailor these suggestions to your own needs in order to move forward. Let’s see how Faith managed her anxiety about speaking as she was first learning Japanese.
Maintaining your Motivation
Even when we overcome a wave of anxiety as language learners, of course other doubts or discouragement may begin to enter our mind. We might feel like we’re plateauing or begin to lose motivation. You’re not alone in this feeling either. It is absolutely normal to go back and forth between feelings like this while navigating learning a second language. When you get into cycles like this mentally, feel free to take a deep breath.
First, let’s think about what motivation really means. We touched on motivation earlier in the textbook in Chapter 1 through the lens of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but what is motivation from the “30,000 foot view”? Is it a thought? Or maybe it’s a feeling? Dornyei (2001) tells us that “motivation explains why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to sustain the activity” (p. 7). There have been many theories on which elements contribute to motivation, and psychologists believe that motivation is at the center of whatever we try to achieve.
We can learn from Dornyei (2001) that at a basic level, we (consciously or subconsciously) consider the benefits of an action, how likely we are to be able to complete the action, and whether or not our environment supports our action. In line with our earlier discussion on motivation, much of this comes from within us. Though, of course, there is a bit more to it than just that, it gives us a good starting point.
Even when we’re in the “perfect” conditions, sometimes language learning can feel overwhelming. If there is more to motivation than just having the right conditions, what else contributes to it?
The TED Talk below by Angela Lee Duckworth discusses the concept of “grit” that has been recent researched in the field of psychology. Carol Dweck, at the head of much of the discussed research, claims this “grit” strongly connects motivation levels to ones’ ability to learn with a growth mindset (Chapter 1). When learners understand how the brain changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail because they “don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition”.
We can see through these materials that motivation is not a topic we can understand with a “one-size-fits-all” approach. It’s something deeply personal and non-linear. However, using the tools in your toolkit you’ve developed while reading this book, you may be able to recognize the core values that prompted your language journey in the first place, and see how you can continue using these values as motivators going forward.
Without connecting the way we learn to our values, we may lose motivation. Tools such as metacognition (Chapter 5) help us resist this by allowing us to reflect upon our journey frequently and check its alignment with those values. This can be an intimidating but exciting challenge as we dive deeper in our personal language learning journey. For those who are up to the challenge, there is an incredible reward on the other side!
Let’s see how Faith continued her Japanese learning when she was hitting some plateaus.
References
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511667343
Papi, M., & Khajavy, H. (2023). Second language anxiety: Construct, effects, and sources. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 43, 127-139. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190523000028.
"The use of reflective awareness to make timely adjustments (self-regulation) to behaviors that support a goal-directed process" (Scharff, 2023). In simple words, it's also defined as thinking about thinking
Any language learned after the first language(s). The term "second language" does not necessarily refer to the 2nd language in time that a person learns. It can be a third, fourth, or other additional language
A verb form of the word "language" emphasizing the fact that using language is an action of active communication, not just an object of study (a noun)
A state when an individual feels there is a little or no significant change despite continued effort or practice
Reasons and objectives that inspire people to learn a new language(s). It can be intrinsic motivation that comes from within and linked to personal fulfillment. It can also be extrinsic that is influenced by external factors such as learning a language as an academic requirement to complete a degree program