Do You See What I Feel? An Idiodynamic Assessment of Expert and Peer's Reading of Nonverbal Language Anxiety Cues

Abstract

Nowhere is this metaphorical struggle between wolves more evident than within anxious language learners, with teachers and classmates playing their part in the feeding of the wolves. Do we feed the benevolent wolf and receive the positive effects of well-being or are we complicit in nourishing the malevolent wolf whose existence is characterised by the negativity engendered by anxiety, fear and worry? One thing the elderly grandfather fails to mention, however, is that these inner wolves are continually vying for attention; their host's affective state is seldom stable. In an hour in a language classroom, one might find a learner feeding his/her low anxiety wolf with self-talk reflecting enjoyment and pride at the accomplishments of a second language (L2) activity with a partner. Soon after, the teacher feeds the anxiety wolf by insensitive error correction. Friends help to feed the low-anxiety wolf with encouraging comments but also feed the anxious wolf as they express their worries about upcoming testing and the consequences of failure. Back and forth it goes. Ongoing fluctuations in anxiety beg the questions: How do we know which wolf language learners are feeding at any given moment? Can teachers tell whether the wolves are acting up?