Abstract:
A considerable number of second language learners suffer from language anxiety when they
enter the second language classroom. A majority of school goers in Sri Lanka study in either
in Sinhala or Tamil and are exposed to the English language only in the English language
classroom. Students carry this anxiety to the ESL classroom even at the university level. Most
of them express their anxiety of the language in different forms, to the extent that students
simply refuse to speak in English. The results of earlier research indicates that anxiety was
often stated as one of the major causes of decreased motivation to learn, interference to learn
and poor performance in the ESL classroom (Horwirz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; Gregerson,
2003; Karunakaran, Rana & Manwarul, 2013). This study was designed to explore teachers‘
perception of how language anxiety affects students‘ participation in the ESL classroom. 8
English teachers teaching students of four different student proficiency levels of the Faculty
of Humanities at the University of Kelaniya were selected for this study. The research
methodology used in this study is a mixed approach where a questionnaire and a semi
structured interview were used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The findings
of this study will aid the researcher to contribute to ESL classroom of the University of
Kelaniya to improve speaking abilities of the second language learners.
