Language Anxiety among Gifted Learners in Malaysia

Abstract

Language anxiety has significantly sparked great concern in the second and foreign language learning world. Researches have found negative correlation between language anxiety and academic achievement of English language learners; and, most of the studies focus on average school students and tertiary level students. This paper, however, explores gifted learners’ English language anxiety in ESL setting, by surveying 119 gifted learners of PERMATApintar National Gifted Center (PpNGC), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia. The result shows that gifted learners have certain level of language anxiety in English language setting; that language anxiety negatively correlates withgifted learnes’ English language performance; and that female gifted learners indicate higher language anxiety than males. Finally, this paper provides some insights towards minimizing gifted learners’ language anxiety in English language environment.