ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AS A DETERMINING FACTOR IN ANXIETY FROM LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE

Resumen

Introduction: Panamanian law #2 from 14^th of January 2003 makes teaching English at school from 1 to 12^th grade mandatory (Asamblea Nacional, 2003, p.1), but studies found a significant percentage of college applicants lacked the necessary language skills (Guadamud, 2019) (Kaur, 2020). Objective: This study focuses on academic achievement and its relationship with anxiety from learning a second language. Method: This is explored from the theoretical framework of Coello y Cachón (2017), which define “academic achievement” as grades plus student engagement. This experiment adopts a structure inspired by Phillips findings (1992) correlating a negative relationship between grades and anxiety from second language, but focusing in engagement instead. Control and experimental groups were exposed to a 1-hour English language workshop. The control group followed the book guidelines, while the experimental group followed the ESA model (Engage, Study, Activate). Both groups filled engagement (UWES-S-9) and anxiety (FLCAS) inventories. Results: This failed to reveal any statistically relevant Pearson correlations between engagement and anxiety (r=-0.307) (p=0.266). Comparing the mean engagement results between the post-test of both experimental and control groups showed negligible differences between each other de 39.12 y 38.14, which fall within the 2.24- 2.82-point margin of error. Anxiety results behaved similarly between groups with mean scores of 91. 12 and 93.14. Conclusion: The engagement results suggest that the experimental stimulus failed at inducing any engagement changes compared to the control group. These results could be due to a number of affecting variables such as the small sample size, insufficient mastery over the experimental stimulus from the research team or the very nature of the stimulus requires exposure over a longer period of time before it takes effect, making a single session model ineffective. Inconclusive though they might be, the resulting negative correlation leaves room for more thorough experimentation.