Reflecting on Von Worde 2003 on Anxiety

This paper is very relevant to my day to day teaching and it enlightened me a lot about anxiety triggers. I found out that me refusing to say any word in Arabia, the students' mother tongue, is not always helping. Another thing is going by order (Wörde, 2003), I actually asked my students if that triggers their anxiety and they all nodded in agreement. This topic I think should be a prerequisite workshop for all language teachers for a more successful learning experience.

Another thing that really shocked me is how they could blame the teacher for what is going wrong(Wörde, 2003). I personally had a similar experience. When I moved from kindergartners to adults, I took for granted that they know a lot and I tried to push them to reach their full potential. I thought I am helping. The results were not that satisfying and I was labelled as a mean and arrogant teacher. I changed my teaching style a lot afterwards. I realized that adult learners need a lot of reassurance (Wörde, 2003), maybe more that adults.

Now reading about anxiety shows me another aspect of what went wrong and this really encouraged me to read further and plan as much as I can for a more friendly non threatening learning experience. 

References:

Wörde, Renée. "Students' Perspectives on Foreign Language Anxiety." 2003. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.