INTRODUCTION

The English language is the most important in the present era. It is now one of the most
widely spoken languages in the world, serving as a primary or secondary language for
millions of people. It is the dominant or official language in many countries and is
commonly used in international business, science, technology, and diplomacy.
Additionally, it is a key language for global communication and cultural exchange.
English has evolved over centuries, influenced by various languages and cultures,
including Latin, French, and Norse.
Coping with the changing world, and the rapid rise of modernity where English language
is the medium, it has made the demand to learn it, especially for educational purposes.
Department of Education (DepEd) aims for students to possess oral fluency in speaking
English, where students can effectively communicate and express their thoughts, and
the receiver understands the message accurately. Brown (2015) specified that effective
communication is an extension of the concept to requires that transmitted content is
received and understood by someone in the way it was intended.
English language as the Philippines’ second language should be acquired effectively.
That is why the Department of Education (DepEd) introduces students to the English
language at an early grade level to facilitate their learning. The education curriculum
was even modified to spiral progression where it progressively enhances language skills
by incorporating grammatical concepts, structures, and various text types. These
elements are taught, reviewed, and revisited at increasingly challenging levels. This
approach enables students to advance from foundational language skills to more
sophisticated levels of language use. The activities that simulate real-life situations of
varying language demands (purposes, topics, and audiences) will be employed to help
students interact with others thereby improving their socialization skills. The areas of
language learning – the receptive skills, the productive skills, and grammar and
vocabulary will be taught in an integrated way, together with the use of relevant print
and non-print resources, to provide multiple perspectives and meaningful connections.
Integration may come in different types either implicitly or explicitly (skills, content,
theme, topic, and values integration). The curriculum also prioritizes learners and they
make them the center of the teaching-learning process. Teaching will be differentiated
according to students’ needs, abilities, and interests. Effective pedagogies will be used
to engage them and to strengthen their language development. Many interventions
were implemented and are continuously being made until this time. However, learners
still usually encounter difficulties in the mastery of listening speaking, reading, and
writing in the English language resulting in an unpleasant feeling among them. This
negative perception affected their understanding of the language which in turn affected
their academic performance. According to Koichi Sato (2003:5), some factors make
students feel anxiety when speaking. First, students are afraid of making mistakes and
second is that the oral activities done in English class are often meaningless and
irrelevant to the daily life of the students. Due to being unable to acquire the desired
results, the students may have an idea to answer, participate, or interact with his/her
teacher during the teaching and learning process, but may choose not to because one
factor that affects a student's participation in his/her language anxiety in speaking
English in a language classroom. It is a feeling of inferiority that haunts every language
learner who performs badly. Learners would feel bad and think that they are no good
and that they are worse because they cannot acquire the language while others can,
they would feel bad and think that they are no good, and this leads to poor performance,
no social interaction, loss of confidence, terrified of making mistakes and they tend to
avoid any situation where they feel they won't succeed. Rardin, in 1991, suggested that
a high degree of language anxiety could manifest itself in signs of palms sweating,
stomach nervousness, and increased in heartbeat and pulse rates. Some students in
the author's classroom act in this way sometimes. They stutter and stammer when
answering because they are not familiar with that, this time, they experience anxiety.

However, what does anxiety truly mean? Anxiety is a common emotion when dealing
with daily stresses and problems. People dealing with anxiety could have apprehension,
confusion, on edge, a sense of helplessness, repeated negative thoughts, muscle
tension, palpitations, and difficulty breathing. Language anxiety, as defined by Gardner
and MacIntyre (1993; as cited in Daubney, 2015), is the fear or apprehension
occurring when a learner is expected to perform in a second or foreign language or the
worry and negative emotional reaction when learning or using a second language.
English language anxiety, was coined by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986),is a
specific anxiety affecting the gaining knowledge of English language. English language
anxiety is basically a type of situations pecific anxiety that is specially associated with
English language contexts in speaking, listening, and learning (MacIntyre and Gardner,
1994). Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) explain English language anxiety as a distinct
complex phenomenon of “self-perceptions, beliefs feelings, and behaviors related to
classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning
process”. According to Kim (2001), it is a complex of self-perceptions, subjective beliefs,
and uneasy feelings that accompanies adverse emotional reactions and cognitive
interference characteristic of maladjustment at intrapersonal and interpersonal levels,
which arises from the sense that one cannot meet one’s expectations and perceived
environmental demands. Macintyre and Gardner (1991) describe English language
anxiety stemming from the negative expectations in English language learning. English
language anxiety is a phenomenal issue and mainly a negative factor in language
learning which directly affects the academic achievement of the learners.

Others might say that English anxiety will be ridden if learners practice and prepare
well, but language anxiety is a factor of Emotional Quotient, a particular kind of feeling.
Based on Horwitz and Cope, language anxiety is a series of complicated feelings,
conceptions, and behaviors that are unique to foreign or second language learning.
In other countries, there are more complicated situations. Different people, different
language learning, and different backgrounds will result in different manifestations.