Language Anxiety among APESA Students in Morocco: An Exploratory Analysis

Foreign language anxiety is a significant factor affecting students’ oral production. That is, anxiety for EFL students is considered the most frightening language skill. This article is twofold. It endeavors to identify the factors that make APESA students anxious about their communication and participation in the classroom (Année Préparatoire aux Etudes Supérieures en Agriculture). Also, it will suggest some interventions or strategies that can be used to reduce students’ communication anxiety. 222 freshman students participated in the study by filling out an online questionnaire, based on Horwitz’s foreign language classroom anxiety scales, distributed during the session to account for the research objectives. The results of the study indicated that communication apprehension (the fear of speaking in front of the public) is the first factor that causes language anxiety among APESA students. Then, students’ linguistic competency came as the second factor. The study’s results can be useful for instructors and students as well by presenting and suggesting some pedagogical keys to lock this issue of language anxiety in the EFL context.