A Qualitative Inquiry into EFL Anxiety: Through the Voices of Class Constituents

This article explored 9 EFL learners' emotional reactions they experienced in order to locate sources of EFL apprehension in university-based classroom settings. As part of further establishing construct validity of the measure (the FLPAS) Kim (2002) developed, lengthy interviews were adopted with focus on sources of discomfort with a variety of forms of language learning tasks. Findings showed that the interviewees confirmed most of the statements in the measuring tool, thereby increasing the trustworthiness of the measure. Specifically, the following themes or categories emanated from the analysis of interview data: (a) anxiety about performance in EFL classrooms; (b) EFL anxiety or discomfort about difficulties with cultural understanding; and (c) EFL anxiety induced by instructor and instruction.