INDONESIAN STUDENTS’ ANXIETY TO WRITE IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACROSS GENDER AND EDUCATIONAL LEVELS

Abstract

This survey explored the level and types of anxiety expressed by Indonesia students in writing in English as a foreign language anxiety across gender and educational levels. To this end, 221 foreign language (FL) students from three levels of educations, i.e. lower-secondary school, upper-secondary school and university, were surveyed on voluntary basis where they were asked to complete 22 items of a Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) questionnaire. Two statistical analyses, Rasch Analysis and ANOVA, were performed to examine the quantitative data. The findings showed that all students experienced writing anxiety in FL learning, many experiencing a moderate level of anxiety. Furthermore, students’ writing anxiety was not influenced by gender and educational levels. Indeed, students across all education levels reported experiencing somatic anxiety, avoidance behaviour and cognitive anxiety, with avoidance behaviour being the most common form of anxiety. In conclusion, it is recommended that helping students to develop a positive perception of their FL writing is crucial in addition to helping them develop their writing skills. Keywords: foreign language anxiety (FLA), foreign language (FL) learning, Rasch model, writing anxiety.