Gender Differences in Language Anxiety among ESL Students in Academic Communication: Exploring Classroom Participation, Linguistic Confidence, and Social Expectations

Abstract

Language anxiety is considered to be one of the significant factors affecting second language learning and academic communication among ESL learners. When English is the first language of instruction taught at the university level, students are expected to engage in discussions, presentations, and academic interactions, which can become a source of anxiety and reduce the tendency of communication with others. This paper examines gender differences in language anxiety among ESL postgraduate learners in academic communication with special focus in classroom participation, linguistic confidence and social expectations. The theoretical insights that inform the research are the Foreign Language Anxiety and willingness to communicate, which intensifies the role of psychology and social factors in determining the application of language in an academic context. The data was collected using open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews through purposive sampling. There were 200 English postgraduate students who are collected as a sample. The participants belonged to the first and fourth semester of the University of the Punjab, Government College University Lahore, and University of Education Lahore. The obtained data were processed through thematic analysis in order to define the patterns in the context of language anxiety and communication behavior. The results have shown that language anxiety is experienced by both male and female students though the magnitude and the reasons differ. Female students tended to complain of greater emotional anxiety associated with fear of error, whereas their male counterparts complained about language ability and social comparison. The findings further suggest that the linguistic confidence and academic experience are two primary factors that affect Students’ involvement in classroom communication.