Doodling the Nerves: Surfacing Language Anxiety Experiences in an English Language Classroom

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the use of doodling to surface experiences in the psychological phenomenon of language anxiety in an English classroom. It treated the doodles of 192 freshmen from a premier university in Northern Luzon, Philippines. Further, it made use of phenomenological reduction in analysing the data gathered. Findings reveal that doodling can be an effective tool in surfacing experiences of a psychological phenomena, such as language anxiety, although this may not be generalizable. The gathered doodles show that English language learners go through shimming and shaming experiences, specifically, buffing, baffling, shutting, sweating and shivering, and shattering. The findings of the study can benefit teachers for they can use doodling, a non-verbal tool, in generating the classroom experiences of their students. More so, the anxiety experiences unveiled in this study will help language teachers realize the impact of language anxiety on English language learners.

Keywords

Negative experiences positive experiences neutral cognitive battle

Introduction and Literature Review

Language anxiety has been a factor of language learning, experience, and performance. It is defined as the ‘feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening, and learning’ (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994: 284). It is also ‘a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of language learning process’ (Howritz et al., 1986: 128). Moreover, MacIntyre (1999: 27) defined language anxiety as ‘the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a second language. Additionally, communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation are the three components of language anxiety (Howritz et al., 1986).

Several factors cause language anxiety. Studies reveal that one of its causes is the learners themselves, specifically, the learners’ high personal expectations (Rezaei and Jafari, 2014), self-related cognitions (Hashemi, 2011), fear of negative evaluation (Kondo and Ying-Ling, 2003; Ohata, 2005; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014; Riosati, 2011; Williams and Andrade, 2008; Yahya, 2013; Zhang, 2011), lack of preparation (Ardi, 2007; Riosati, 2011), low self-confidence (Ardi, 2007; Matsuda and Gobel, 2004; Ohata, 2005; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014), and poor linguistic knowledge or low proficiency (Berkleyen, 2009; Kondo and Yang, 2003; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014). Another cause is the teachers, specifically, teaching procedures (Merc, 2011), teachers’ negative ideas about students and students’ errors (Merc, 2011; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014; Riosati, 2011), making mistakes and teachers’ correcting the mistakes (Rezaei and Jafari, 2014), and test anxiety ( Khattak et al., 2011; Marwan, 2007; Ohata, 2005; Riosati, 2011). Other factors include socio-economic backgrounds (Hashemi, 2011; Khattak et al., 2011), culture (Hashemi, 2011; Ohata, 2005), and poor educational background (Khattak et al., 2012; Yayli, 2012).

Particularly, fear of negative evaluation (Ohata, 2005; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014; Riosati, 2011; Subasi, 2012) poor linguistic knowledge (Rezaei and Jafari, 2014), test anxiety (Ohata, 2005), low self confidence (Subasi, 2012), teaching procedures (Subasi, 2012), and poor educational background (Khattak et al., 2012; Yayli, 2012) directly relates to the learning of English as a Second Language/English as a Foreign Language (ESL/EFL).

Language learners have different levels of anxiety (Tum, 2012; Hassani, 2012; Tajima 2002). Learners may experience some level of language anxiety (Duxbury and Tsai, 2012; Yang, 2012), high anxiety scores (Brown et al., 2001), or low level of anxiety (Yayli, 2012).

Regardless of the level, however, language anxiety undoubtedly affects learners. The effects of language anxiety can be facilitating or debilitating. Facilitating effect stimulates the learners to fight while debilitating effect stimulates the learners to flee (Scovel, 1999). Facilitating effects include students appearing to be more cautious in making their judgments (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994). On the other hand, debilitating effects include uncertainty of one’s abilities, difficulty in speaking in public, minimal participation in conversations, failure to initiate conversation, and finally becoming self-conscious and inhibited speakers (Suleimenova, 2013); unwillingness to communicate (Hashimoto, 2002; Zhang, 2011); slowing down of vocabulary task acquisition (Gardner, 1989; Khan and Zafar, 2010; MacIntyre and Gardner, 1994); and feelings of frustration (Williams and Andrade, 2008). Andrade and Williams (2009) surfaced that the effects of language anxiety are manifested through physical reactions, such as, faster heartbeat, feeling hot or burning cheeks, perspiring, and a lump in the throat; emotional reactions, like, having the mind go blank and an inability to concentrate; verbal reactions, that include speech disturbances (hesitation, mispronunciation, etc.), speaking in short phrases, shortening one’s comments to one or two sentences, silence, broken English, simplifying what one wanted to say and sounding childish, and making grammatical and pronunciation mistakes; and expressive reactions like smiling or laughing and changes in order to mask one’s true feelings.

Understanding the multifaceted concept of language anxiety requires the use of communication, either verbal or non-verbal. Most of the data gathered in studies on language anxiety used verbal communication under quantitative approach employing close-ended questionnaires (Duxbury and Tsai, 2010; Hismanoglu, 2012; Hussain et al., 2011; Khodadady and Khajavy, 2013; Matsuda, 2004; Marwan, 2007; Orbeta and San Jose, 2013; Ozururk and Hursen, 2013; Rajab et al., 2012; Smith and Schroth, 2014; Thevasigamoney and Yunus, 2014; Tum, 2012; Williams and Andrade, 2008; Wong 2012; Yahya, 2013; and Yang, 2012). Other studies utilized qualitative using open-ended questionnaire and interview (Khattak et al., 2011; Kocak, 2010), diary and semi-structured interview (Merc, 2011), semi-structured interview (Riosati, 2011), or semi-structured interview and focus-group discussion (Hashemi, 2011). Some studies delved into mixed methods using closed-ended and open-ended survey questionnaires (Berkleyen, 2009; Grant et al., 2014; Kondo and Ying-Ling, 2004; Ozturk and Gurbuz, 2013), close-ended questionnaires and interviews (Ohata, 2005; Rezaei and Jafari, 2014; Savasci, 2014; Suleimenova, 2013; Yalcin and Incecay, 2014), or close-ended questionnaire and focus-group discussion ( Klanrit and Sroinan, 2012; Pappamihiel, 2002).

Scarce studies investigated the non-verbal aspect. Doodling is one way of expressing cognitive, psychomotor, and affective experiences beyond ordinary words. ‘Doodles are not mere figures of speech, but they contain an essential mechanism of the mind’ (de Guzman et al., 2007:10); therefore, they can unveil a person’s deepest feelings or experiences that may not be translatable to the usual vocabulary. Moreover, doodles are blueprints of thinking (Martinez et al., 2001) because they are assertions of a person’s unique nature (Manaster, 1988).

Some benefits of doodling include increase in one’s ability to focus (especially when handling dull or complex subject matter), increase in information retention and recall, activation of the mind’s eye or the portions of the visual cortex that allow people to see mental imagery and manipulate concepts, enhancement of access to the creative, problem-solving and subconscious parts of the brain while allowing the conscious mind to keep working, and unification of three major learning modalities: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (Brown, 2010).

Doodling has been successfully used in studies aimed at understanding the persona of clinical instructors (de Guzman et al., 2008), in surfacing the Filipino student nurses’ perspectives of comfort and comforting (de Guzman et al., 2007); in aiding concentration (Andrade, 2010), in surfacing Filipino school children’s images of librarians (de Guzman et al., 2007), in doodle-book programme (Dziedziewicz et al., 2012); in literacy programme (Biggart et al., 2013), in online games (Kumaran et al., 2012), in online scheduling behaviour and cultural differences in time perception and decision-making (Reinecke et al., 2012), and in the effects of doodling on the academic and artistic learning of K to12 students (Aquino, 2013).

While it is a fact that ‘for decades, language anxiety has been one of the most tantalizing areas in second language acquisition (SLA) research’ (Yang, 2012: 184), the literature review of this study reveals that most of the studies made use of quantitative and qualitative data gathering tools. Little is known about the use of non-verbal data gathering tools like doodles in surfacing experiences of the psychological phenomenon of language anxiety. Hence, this study aimed at exploring the use of doodling in capturing the language anxiety experiences of students. Specifically, it determined the answer to the question What typifies the language anxiety experiences of students? The study especially considered the concept that doodling can facilitate the reconstruction and deconstruction of the abstract (de Guzman et al., 2007). In this study, the abstract construct is the language anxiety experiences of ESL learners.

Methodology

Subjects of the Study

To answer the objective of the study, 192 first year Education students of one of the premier universities in Northern Luzon in the Philippines served as the key informants.

The preference of working with first year students is that ‘they are young adults who are more capable of articulating their feelings compared to children or teenagers and that they are considered beginners in university lectures’, as such, ‘they are more likely to experience anxiety compared to other levels’ (Idri, 2012: 59). Table 1 presents the demographics of the respondents.

Table 1.

Profile of the respondents

Profile	Number of Respondents	Profile		Number of Respondents
Age		Number of English Enrolled in	Subjects
15	2
16	115
17	62	1		0
18	12	2		192
21	1
Sex		English Enrolled In	Courses
Female	152
Male	40	English (Communication Arts 1)		192
		English 5 (Phonetics and Oral Communication)	192	192
Degree and Field of Specialization		Have experienced language anxiety
BEED	71	No		0
		Yes		192
Special Education	26
General Education	38
Preschool Education	7
BSED	121
Music, Arts,Physical Education, and Health	37
English	44
Math	18
Social Science	11
Filipino	11
Number of English Subjects Finished (in the tertiary level)	0	Total Number of Respondents		192

Instrumentation

To gather data and information, a two-part research instrument was prepared. The first part was a robofoto, cartographic sketch of the subject to establish the basic characteristics of the key informants (de Guzman et al., 2007).

Attached to the robofoto was a bond paper where the key informants doodled. A space on the bond paper was reserved for the informants’ explanations or descriptions of their doodles.

Data Collection and Procedure

During the meeting, the two-part instrument was distributed to the students for them to answer in 30 minutes. Instruments with incomplete information were excluded in the data analyses phase of the study. To lessen communication anxiety, the key informants were given a short introduction and instructions using the language in which they were most comfortable. Similarly, students were instructed to write their explanation or description using the language they were most comfortable using.

Data Analysis

For a more accurate analysis of the language anxiety experiences, the doodles were subjected to bracketing and phenomenological reduction using a repertory grid. Bracketing and phenomenological reduction means ‘suspending (bracketing) as much as possible the researcher’s meaning and interpretations and entering into the world of the unique individual who was interviewed’ (Hycner 1985: 281); in this study, entering into the world of the key informants was through their doodles.

The repertory grid helped the researcher analyse the data using cool and warm analyses. In this study, cool analysis is the technical analysis or the repertory grid analysis in order to identify the significant points of the doodles. These significant points were validated by the descriptions written by the doodlers. On the other hand, the warm analysis, which involves empathy as an essential part in analysing data, was employed in the categorizing of the significant statements and in the discovering of the main themes. To accurately surface the essence of the key informants’ experiences, the researcher conferred with two experts of phenomenological reduction to recheck the significant points of the doodle, categories, and main themes.

Since the doodles were gathered in an emic perspective, discussions were done in an etic perspective. Morris, Leung, and Lickel (1999: 783) posited that in an emic perspective, ‘behavior is described as seen from the perspective of cultural insiders, in construct drawn from their self-understanding’. Moreover, ‘observations are recorded in a rich qualitative form that avoids imposition of the researchers’ construct’ (Morris, Leung, and Lickel, 1999: 783). In this study, the ‘recording’ was done by the key informants through doodles and short descriptions using the language they are most comfortable using. In an etic perspective, ‘behavior is described from a vantage external to the culture in constructs that apply equally well to other cultures’ (Morris et al., 1999: 783).

Ethical Consideration

Permission to conduct the study was sought and the key informants were requested to doodle voluntarily. Moreover, the key informants were assured that the data gathered would be used only for research purposes.

Findings and Discussion

Two major aspects of language anxiety experiences surfaced after a rigorous analyses of the doodles (see Appendix A). These major aspects are the shimming and the shaming experiences.

The Shimming Experiences

Shimming experiences are the language anxiety experiences that lead to either pleasant or unexplainable feelings. These experiences imply that language anxiety is a device that either enhances the learners’ use of the second language or prevents the learners from striving to improve from their failure to use their second language. They include buffing and baffling language anxiety experiences.

Buffing Experiences

Although the key informants expressed that they feel anxious when they use the English language as a medium to express themselves, their anxiety provides them positive language learning experiences. These positive experiences are termed in this study as the buffing experiences. Ohata’s study reveals that ‘many of the experienced teachers maintained that some of the language anxiety experiences could have a positive or facilitating effect on L2 learning and acquisition’ (2005: 149).

In the buffing experiences, language anxiety encourages the key informants to do better and to let them enjoy the use of the English language. These are made evident by the doodles such as a girl with a smiling face, sliced cake, smiling face, head set, butterfly, and budding plant. These images show positive language anxiety experiences and even reinforced by the key informants’ descriptions:

‘piece of cake’

‘rock and roll’

‘improving, nervous’

‘Challenging, nervous’

Baffling Experiences

Both the visual and verbal sharings of the informants surface strongly the idea of being challenged, i.e., trying to overcome a weakness or a flaw. This is definitely working towards an advantage. Some key informants reflected that language anxiety brought them mixed emotions. They expressed that their language anxiety causes them more of various conflicting emotions. Larsen and McGraw defined mixed emotions as ‘the co-occurrence of positive and negative affects’ (2014: 263). This group of language anxiety experience is termed in this study as baffling experiences in which language anxiety is seen as a device that hampers learners from positive second language experience because of a negative feeling or emotion.

The key informants’ use of the different colours represents their mixed emotions; therefore, baffling experiences include doodles such as different colours, one big question mark with red and brown shades on the left, right, and bottom part, and diagonal shades of different colours. Moreover, the key informants wrote descriptions like:

‘inexplicable feeling’

‘mixed feelings’

‘mix emotion’

‘unawatable’ (cannot be explained)

The Shaming Language Anxiety Experiences

Shaming experiences refer to unpleasant language anxiety experiences. Zhong et al., (2008: 449) define shame as a type of negative emotion accompanied by ‘negative introspection and self-evaluation, which shows the feature of self-orientation on phenomenological assessment’. These shaming experiences may be brought about by negative self-evaluation and by fear of being negatively evaluated by others. Fear of negative evaluation is the ‘apprehension about others’ evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively’ (Humphries, 2011: 67). People do not want others to see manifestations of anxiety (Bogels et al., 2010) because of fear of negative evaluation. They do not want to be judged as weak, foolish, or stupid (Bogels et al., 2010). Shan (2010) found that fear of negative evaluation is the component arousing the most anxiety in the college group. Moreover, Andrade and Williams (2009: 3) mentioned that ‘the inability to pronounce words correctly or use correct grammar can lead to negative evaluation by others, and the inability to comprehend spoken and written input, including instructions, can lead to confusion and embarrassment about how to respond or act. These types of anxieties contribute to making formal foreign language learning a particular at-risk experience for many learners’.

Shaming experiences are the effects of the debilitative language anxiety. The shaming experiences include shutting, sweating and shivering, and shattering experiences. The language anxiety experiences are manifested physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Shutting Experiences

Shutting experiences reflect the key informants’ cognitive battle with anxiety. They show language anxiety as a block in the communicative process. MacIntyre (1999) echoed this when he said that anxiety can become an affective filter that can block information from being processed by the brain; hence, the learners may have difficulty articulating apt ideas. Zheng (2008) explained that students encounter difficulty in expressing themselves because of ‘freezing-up moments’ caused by anxiety.

The key informants’ doodles that imply mental block or ‘freezing up’ moments include a person and a dialogue box with three question marks, mouth with question marks, face with mouth half-opened, a person with straight-lined lips, dialogue box with the characters #@*x-, a person and a dialogue box with bla…???, a girl with square mouth highlighted and with paper and notes, tongue with rope, lips with question mark, dialogue box with uhmm…ahh and question mark, and brain with question mark. These shutting experiences are further described by the key informants as follows:

‘speechless’

‘Mental block’

‘lost of words’

‘nervous, I might stutter’

‘Ngangabells’ (speechless)

‘nau-utal-utal’ (stuttering)

‘nakakabulol’(cannot produce the sounds correctly)

The informants gave a lucid explanation of their doodles. Language anxiety causes them to be speechless or to suffer from mental block. Fear of blocking can also be regarded as a fear of showing uncontrollable anxiety symptoms, which may be apparent in performance, observation, and interactional situations (Bogels et al., 2011).

Sweating and Shivering Experiences

This group includes uncontrollable psychological and physiological experiences of language anxiety, specifically, hands with sweat, face with sweat, perspiring person, hands drawn using squiggle line, face with red shade (blushing), and heart monitor represent the sweating and shivering experiences. The key informants gave the following descriptions:

‘sweating hands and face =>,’

‘sweating hurts’

‘#sweating, nervous’

‘#Trembling’

‘trembling person grrr’

‘shivering’

‘Nanginginig’(shivering)

As can be seen, the informants identified physical manifestations of their language anxiety; this implies a negative impact of language use. Bogels et al. (2010) even cautioned that manifesting negative visible responses may even lead to social fear of showing these responses. Bogels et al., mentioned that ‘a disposition to easily blush, sweat or, tremble, or for those responses to be more visible (e.g. because of thin skin) might contribute to social fear of showing those responses’ (2010: 175). Learners do not want to be ostracized or to be bullied because of the observable anxiety symptoms.

Shattering Experiences

Shattering experiences are the traumatic experiences that can ruin a person’s self-esteem. Zheng mentioned that ‘language learning experience could, under some circumstances, become a traumatic experience. This kind of unpleasant experience may deeply disturb one’s self-esteem or self-confidence as a learner’ (2010: 5).Such experiences include psycho-emotional experiences; hence, doodles such as two heads – one with robust hair- the other without hair, a girl’s face with a downward bracket as mouth and squiggle line with u-uh and t-tt, clouds (raining), face with tears and squiggle-lined mouth, an eye with a tear, a girl with curved lines around and with mouth pouting – represent the shattering experiences. The key informants described the doodles as:

‘nakakahiya’ (shameful)

‘stuttering, very nervous, and very embarrassed’

‘nakakaiyak’ (makes me cry)

‘makapasangit!!! Pahiya!!! Wagas’ (makes me cry, very much shameful)

‘makapakalbo’(makes me bald)

‘makapahaggard’ (makes me look haggard)

‘teary eyed’

Conclusion and Implications

The findings of the study reveal that there are positive effects of language anxiety; hence, English language teachers need to find more strategies to help language learners channel their language anxiety as facilitating tool. The key informants also claimed that they experience mixed emotions – the experience of positive and negative feelings. The teachers are then challenged to assist language learners lessen, if not eradicate, the negative feelings the learners encounter when using English as a second/foreign language in order to pull the mixed emotions to positive experiences.

The negative experiences of the key informants pose a greater challenge to English language teachers because negative experiences in language learning may lead to social phobia or social anxiety disorder. Edwards, Martin and Dozois (2010) mentioned that social phobia involves fear of negative evaluation, humiliation, and embarrassment; a tendency to avoid social situations; and anxiety-related symptoms of physiological arousal. Also, Bogels et al., mentioned that ‘the core feature of SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) is the fear of being negatively evaluated, because of anxiety symptoms, certain behavior, or a certain appearance’ (2010: 175). Suleimenova posits that social context, ‘competitive classroom atmosphere, difficult interactions with teachers, risk of embarrassment may all influence language anxiety. However, the most troublesome effect of language anxiety is the personal effect it has on the individual language learner. Language learning should not be a traumatic experience, but for some students it is just that’ (2013: 1866). Hence, language teachers should see to it that the learners will not feel demoralized or traumatized in their language learning. They are challenged to revisit their teaching strategies and techniques and to evaluate how far these strategies have contributed to positive language learning experiences.

English language teachers, especially in an ESL/EFL context, are confronted with the task of making language learning experience a positive one. This can be achieved by helping learners to lower their affective filter and to channel their language anxiety to their advantage. This will enable learners to acquire the necessary linguistic theories and language anxiety management skills for them to become grammatically, linguistically, and communicatively competent in the global setting.

In this study, the key informants were able to depict splendidly their language anxiety experiences by doodling, a non-verbal tool, as evidenced by their various colourful and creative doodles. These creative doodles may indicate that the key informants enjoyed the research data gathering activity since it is done in a relaxed environment while sharing their language anxiety experiences. These may further indicate that doodling has been an effective tool in generating research data with no or less tension; thus, the key informants’ freely and objectively giving the data needed.

Finally, doodling, specifically in this study, is proven to be a potent tool in capturing the psychological phenomenon of language anxiety. Language anxiety experiences, as the findings show, may be experienced cognitively, physiologically, psychologically, physically, emotionally, psychosocially, or in combination. As a result, it may sometimes be difficult to express through words the language anxiety experience one wants to share. However, with the use of doodling, a non-verbal tool, the key informants were able to clearly capture and share their experiences. Doodling, therefore, may also be a potential tool in generating other experiences brought about by a psychological phenomenon or construct, although its application may not be generalizable.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Funding

This work was supported by the University Research Grant of Saint Louis University under Grant [2014.4.SOH.2].

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