Learning foreign language is challenging, especially so without a proper learning approach to the language. Therefore, one should equip oneself with suitable language learning strategies. Teachers should be perceptive of different language learning strategies in learners and which strategies they benefit the most. This quantitative research is carried out to investigate how learners use cognitive and metacognitive strategies in learning French as a foreign language. The instrument used in the study is a survey adapted from Wenden and Rubin (1987). 189 respondents were purposively chosen to answer the survey. The survey has 3 main sections: demographic profile, 19 items on Cognitive components and 11 items on the use of Metacognitive self-regulation. The findings of this study revealed that both cognitive and metacognitive strategies were adopted by students in learning French. Harmonious balance was observed between both strategies. Cognitive strategies were often used for rehearsal, elaboration, followed by organisation and then critical thinking. For metacognitive strategies were used often in planning and self-evaluation. This is then followed by monitoring. For future research, different learning strategies used by learners in learning a foreign language, especially in a specific learning context can be analysed to attain a more comprehension results.
Learning a foreign language can be challenging to many students. Having to familiarize oneself with an entirely new language and culture is not an easy task to do. This causes anxiety among learners while attending foreign language lessons. Thus, this study is done to investigate the causes of the students' anxiety upon learning foreign language. 120 respondents from a public university in Malaysia composed of three different French class levels participated in answering this survey. Adapted from Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), the survey includes communication apprehension, test anxiety and negative evaluation as tools to measure student's anxiety scale. The survey revealed that the three tools mentioned above are certainly causing learners to be anxious during foreign language lessons. Findings from this quantitative research also projected students' anxiety scale through means score accordingly with negative evaluation coming as the highest total mean of 3.25. In the face of students' profound anxiety, educators' role is crucial in minimizing students' worry so that it will not affect students' study.
There are many reasons that motivates people to learn a new language. Some people learn a language for practical reasons. Some just love the language and its people. Motivation to learn a language is the pushing factor for the learners to succeed. This motivation sometime becomes the drive for the learners participate in the learning process. This then reduces their fear of learning the language. This study is therefore done to investigate the influence of fear on the learning if a foreign language. This study used the classic theory of self-fulling prophecy by Merton (1948) as the base. The three factors in selffulfilling prophecies ( beliefs, expectations and behaviour) are scaffolded onto the three constructs of fear of foreign language learning to form the main variables of the study. 100 participants were purposely chosen. The survey adapted from Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986). Apart from the demographic profile in Section A., there are 3 other sections. Section B has 11 items on beliefs, section 7 has 10 items on expectation and section D has 15 items on behaviour. Findings showed that learners beliefs, expectations and behaviour form the self-fulling prophecy in the learning of a foreign language. Learners beliefs such as being frightened and not being able to understand the teacher made them nervous of the learning activity. Next, the nervousness, is making them worry if they are unable to answer questions from the language teacher. Finally their behaviour is their justification for what they belief in themselves and how they expect their outcome of the learning to be. The findings in this study add to the existing theoretical framework on motivations to learn foreign languages.
Knowing multiple languages has always been an advantage to a person be it for work purposes or for personal gain. However, learning foreign languages is not a walk in the park. Most of the learners experience difficulty during foreign language lessons. Thus, this study is done to investigate one of the common students' struggles, which is foreign language anxiety especially in the context of genders. 100 participants consisting of 50 female students and 50 male students were purposely chosen from a public university in Malaysia to answer a quantitative survey adapted from Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986). The survey is divided into 3 sections including communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety. Data extracted from both survey and SPSS revealed that students are indeed feeling anxious during foreign language classes particularly in the context of fear of negative evaluation. Findings from this study also shows that there is no significant anxiety level difference between female and male students though female students show a slightly higher number. Thus, despite the gender differences, educators ought to help students who experience difficulty during lessons.
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