The Impacts Of Cooperative Learning On Anxiety And Proficiency In An EFL Class

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine the effectiveness of cooperative learning approach in reducing foreign language anxiety and to investigate its impact on language proficiency of 40 sophomore students enrolled in EN 211 course in the second semester of 2009 academic year at Bangkok University.  Three instruments employed were the standardized Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), two proficiency tests covering reading and writing skills, and a semi-structured interview. The pre- and post- scores from the questionnaire and the tests of the group were calculated for descriptive statistics and compared using a paired sample t-test measure. It was found that the students’ top five sources of language classroom anxiety and overall language anxiety were significantly decreased. In addition, they obtained higher language proficiency scores for the post-test than the pre-test at the significance level of .001 after learning through this approach.  The students also had a favorable attitude toward cooperative learning as a whole.