Abstract:

The Effect of Body Posture on Foreign Language Anxiety     Abstract   Some people of an anxious disposition  have the tendency to enter a closed body posture while communicating with others, which is often seen as a physical response to their mental distress caused by the performance of this action.  This closed posture, as it continues, has been show to further affects the anxiety felt by the speaker, feeding into their worries and forming a cycle of anxiety and difficulty in communication. Given that body posture is a factor in this cycle, if the posture is altered to a more positive form it is expected that the speaker will be less affected by anxiety potential reduction in may lead to improvements in the ability to communicate.    The aim of this study is to examine whether the language and general anxiety scores of ELT third-year students changed depending on their body posture and accordingly whether adopting high- vs. low-power poses  can improve an individual‘s  English speaking performance. In this study, the students' bodies were altered into ‘open’ postures, and the effect of this posture on the students' general anxiety and language anxiety levels was examined through the General Anxiety Scale and the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, as well as through semi-structured interviews conducted with the participants.   The study concluded that changing the body posture to an open style had a positive effect both on foreign language anxiety and on general anxiety. Moreover, the qualitative analysis of the interview protocols revealed consistency between the perception of the students about their speaking performance and their anxiety levels.                  Key words:  body posture, foreign language anxiety, general anxiety.     1.      Asst. Prof. Dr, Van Yuzuncu Yil University, Department of ELT , Van, Turkey  [email protected]

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