A Cross-Cultural Study on Iranian and Arab L2 Learners’ Foreign Language Anxiety

: This study is an attempt to provide an alternative insight into the nature of foreign language anxiety (FLA) from a cross-cultural perspective. The participants were 122 Arab and 107 Iranian second/foreign language students. The present study used a mixed methods design, i.e. questionnaire and interview, to gain a richer understanding of the participants’ FLA. It was found that in addition to experiencing anxiety due to pressures related to teacher feedback, a majority of Arabs also experienced FLA because of their perceptions of their instructors. The results further showed that both groups of participants did not consider attending additional foreign language classes anxiety-provoking. This study also corroborates the findings of the previous work on the negative relationship between FLA and self-concept variables. Finally, this view that FLA is a concern of face in different cultures is supported by the findings of the present study, especially with reference to the Iranians.


Introduction
Anxiety is a major area of interest within the field of second/foreign language (L2) education.The type of anxiety that is typically associated with learning an L2 is referred to as foreign language anxiety (FLA) which is defined as 'the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a second language (MacIntyre, 1999, p. 27).As the major stakeholders in L2 education, including learners, teachers and researchers, acknowledge anxiety as a common experience, they have all been interested in finding out to what extent it inhibits L2 learning and production (Dewaele, 2017a).The importance of FLA also arises from the fact that it has been considered one of the most powerful predictors of success or failure in L2 learning (Horwitz, 2001;MacIntyre, 1999).
The FLA can result in quite serious consequences as it can affect the learning potential of the L2 learners, make the best teaching techniques look inappropriate, and change the most useful material into something useless (Arnold & Brown, 1999).In fact, it has been shown that there is a negative relationship between language anxiety and L2 achievement which means that students with higher levels of FLA are more likely to get lower grades (e.g., Ali & Fei, 2017;Awan et al., 2010;Batumlu & Erden, 2007;MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2012;Teimouri et al., 2019).In the longer term, it has been found that L2 learners with high levels of FLA are more likely to quit their L2 studies and drop out of their language courses (e.g., Dewaele & Thirtle, 2009;Lim, 2009).Looking at the issue from another perspective, evidence suggests that anxiety influences the overall process of L2 learning, as it has been found that the processes of L2 retention and production are negatively affected by anxiety (e.g., Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014).Indeed, many researchers agree with Arnold and Brown (1999, p. 8) that 'anxiety is quite possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructs the learning process.This negative effect of anxiety on language processing is attributed to the limited cognitive resources of the brain, which, instead of attending to immediate communicative needs, are required to deal with the anxiety (Dornyei & Ryan, 2015;Salynskaya, Tuchkova, & Yasnitskaya, 2022).
With such potentially harmful consequences, not surprisingly, anxiety has been at the heart of L2 research for several decades, and it has been a priority for both L2 researchers and practitioners.Despite this, few empirical investigations have been carried out on the cross-cultural aspect of anxiety.This is odd because it has been suggested that, in order to shed light on the complex and multidimensional nature of FLA, researchers need to examine the nature of anxiety through considering the affective experiences of different groups of L2 learners who come from the same culture (Ohata, 2005;Saimon, Latif, Rahim, Yusoff, & Mohammad, 2021), and study FLA within cultural contexts (Dewaele & Al-Saraj, 2015).In this way, the relationship between anxiety and culture is one of considerable importance which needs particular attention.As Kalra et al. (2014, p. 70)

point out,
The locus of culture is thus within the people of that culture; it is manifested not only through their customs, rituals, and traditions but also through their values, behaviours, and emotional responses and inevitably influences the way in which we learn to express or suppress our own personal emotions and deal with distress, including anxiety.
This study, thus, is an attempt to provide an alternative insight into the nature of FLA from a cross-cultural perspective.In other words, the aim of this study is to investigate the role of different cultures in understanding the FLA experiences of L2 learners in order to clarify the concept of FLA more clearly.In this way, two groups of subjects (i.e., Iranians and Arabs) from two different cultures are compared with respect to their FLA in their L2 settings.

Research questions
This study aims to collect data relevant to the following questions to understand the differences and similarities between Iranians and Arabs regarding their anxiety in the L2 classroom context: 1) Are there any similarities or differences between Iranians and Arabs regarding their FLA? 2) What might be the possible reasons behind Iranians' and Arabs' FLA in their L2 classroom contexts?

Literature review
There is a large volume of published L2 studies describing the potential sources of FLA.These studies have identified major contributing factors such as incompatibility between teacher and student (e.g., Gregersen & MacIntyre, 2014), personality traits such as neuroticism, perfectionism, and tolerance of ambiguity (e.g., Dewaele, 2002Dewaele, , 2017b;;Dewaele & Ip, 2013;Gregersen & Horwitz, 2002), and willingness to communicate (Liu & Jackson, 2008;MacIntyre, 2007).Since error correction is both intertwined with learning an L2 and is considered a key source of anxiety, it is also wellknown as a process that leads to anxiety arousal (Gregersen, 2003;Johnson & Spellman, 2020;Tasaki, 2020).
In view of all that has been mentioned so far, one may suppose that several factors influence FLA in L2 studies.However, although extensive research has been carried out on these factors, there have been few empirical investigations into the cross-cultural aspect as another potential source of FLA.Ohata (2005) attempted to identify potential sources of anxiety relevant to the affective needs or concerns of Japanese L2 learners in a cross-cultural learning environment.In this way, he conducted in-depth qualitative interviews to explore the nature of language anxiety from the perspective of five Japanese L2 learners in U.S. college settings.He found that the characteristics of language anxiety that they exhibited seemed to be strongly influenced by Japanese culture.This was in sharp contrast to their willingness to adapt themselves to the new setting so that they could follow the American social norms or expectations.However, despite the immediate need to adapt to a new cultural environment, the Japanese learners felt unable to change their own behaviours because their behavioural patterns were highly influenced by their own cultural norms.This inability to do so successfully made them feel anxious.As Ohata (2005, p. 15)

concludes,
Although there are some differences among the participants in the ways of perceiving language anxiety, depending on the age and personality of each participant, cultural influence on their anxiety formation seems to have a large and negative impact, at least on their L2 performance.
Using web-based questionnaires, Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014) collected data from a large number of participants from 72 countries.Considering the location of the respondents, broad global-regional groups were created, including Europeans, Asians, North Americans, South Americans, and Arabs.With reference to FLA, they found significant cultural group differences in their data.More specifically, their data showed that North American participants seemed to have the lowest anxiety, while Asians had the highest anxiety, with South Americans, Arabs and Europeans falling somewhere in the middle.
In order to understand the problems that students might have in adapting to a new language and culture, Doman (2015) studied the language learning histories of 48 Chinese English language learners from a liberal arts college in the United States and a university in Macau.Analyzing the data showed that anxiety and culture were two of the most important factors affecting students' ability to acquire the English language.In her own words, 'anxiety is intertwined with cultural aspects of intercultural communication.Interaction with members of a different cultural group often leads to anxiety for many people (p.15).

Methodology 4.1. Participants
The participants were 122 Arab (43 males and 79 females) and 107 Iranian (39 males and 68 females) L2 students.The Arab students were all studying Persian as an L2 at the language centre of the Non-Persian Students' Office at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Northeastern Iran.They were from different Arab nationalities (i.e.Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon) and were studying different majors at the university.Their ages ranged from 25 to 42.The Iranian students were all studying English as an L2 as part of their B.A. degree requirements at the University of Gonabad, northeastern Iran.Their ages ranged from 19 to 31.

Design and data types
The present study used a mixed methods design, i.e. questionnaire and interview, to gain a richer understanding of the participants' anxiety.This particular design is called the 'sequential explanatory strategy' by Creswell (2009).In his words, this is a design that 'is characterized by the collection and analysis of quantitative data in the first phase of research followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data in a second phase that builds on the results of the initial quantitative results ' (p. 211).
The questionnaire survey is the first part of this strategy which allows extensive analysis of data but also acts as a kind of filter through which a smaller sample of participants will be identified for the subsequent interview phase of the study.The rationale behind this type of mixed methods research is that although the questionnaire survey is a versatile technique that helps to gather a large amount of data efficiently and quickly, it also suffers from shallow respondents' engagement.In other words, it is difficult for the researcher to investigate complex meanings directly by using this technique alone (Dornyei, 2007).It is believed that adding a subsequent interview component to the study can help the researcher to deal with this weakness.Each data type is described in detail in the following sections.

Questionnaire
This study used one of the most reliable questionnaires about anxiety in the field that is the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), developed by Horwitz and her colleagues in 1986 (see Appendix A).The FLCAS is a 33-item, 5-point Likert-type instrument (ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree) measuring learners' anxiety in the L2 class (Horwitz et al., 1986).The items presented in the questionnaire are reflective of communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation in the foreign language classroom.The scale was used to examine the Iranian and Arab students' language anxiety during their English and Persian as L2 classes, respectively.
Before administering the questionnaire, consent was sought from the officials of both universities, and all participants received information about the voluntary nature of the study with anonymity assured.

Interview
In addition to using the questionnaire survey, individual interviews were also conducted with the participants to provide deep insights into potential sources of language anxiety from their perspectives.Thus, the interview aims to triangulate the research questions to ensure that the issues identified in the questionnaire truly reflect and represent the potential effect of culture on the participants' anxiety.
In this way, a subgroup of 25 participants (15 Arabs and 10 Iranians) was randomly chosen and invited to a semi-structured interview to elaborate on their responses to the quantitative data.The aim of the interview was to clarify some concepts in the questionnaire.In this way, during the face-to-face interviews, participants were requested to elaborate on their questionnaire responses.Although there was a set of pre-prepared guiding questions and prompts, the format was open-ended, and the interviewees were encouraged to elaborate on their views and experiences of anxiety in an exploratory manner.Interviews lasted, on average, between 20 to 30 minutes and were audio-recorded.Farsi was used for interviewing the participants as they felt that they could express themselves better through this language.Parts of the interviews were then translated from Farsi into English and transcribed.

Findings 5.1. Questionnaire
In this section, the Iranian and Arab participants' views and opinions about anxiety were examined by asking them to indicate to what extent they agreed with the statements described in 33 items of the FLCAS questionnaire.There were no right or wrong answers here, and the purpose of the items was to gain insight into respondents' views of anxiety.In order to find the overall direction of the participants' responses more clearly and for ease of discussion, the results 57 were categorized into 3 main categories for each itemagree (consisting of strongly agree and agree), neither agree nor disagree and disagree (made up of strongly disagree and disagree).

Iranians' responses
The item which was rated as agreed by most Iranian respondents (83.7%) was number 5, which reads as 'it wouldn't bother me at all to take more foreign language classes.Two other items which were also highly judged to be in the agree category were numbers 9 (I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in a language class) and 10 (I worry about the consequences of failing my foreign language class), with 77.4% and 75.2% respectively.
On the other hand, item 26 was the one with the most disagreed rating (79.3%).In this item, respondents rated the statement, 'I feel more tense and nervous in my language class than in my other classes.The other two items which were highly rated as disagreed were numbers 17 (I often feel like not going to my language class) and 12 (In language class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know), with 74.3% and 70.4%, respectively.

Arabs' responses
The item which was rated as agreed by most Arab respondents (85.6%) was number 19, which reads, 'I am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake I make.Two other items which were also highly judged to be in the agreed category were numbers 29 (I get nervous when I don't understand every word the language teacher says) and 18 (I feel confident when I speak in a foreign language class), with 78.7% and 73.7% respectively.
On the other hand, item 3 was the one with the most disagreed rating (86.3%).In this item, respondents rated the statement 'I tremble when I know that I'm going to be called on in language class'.The other two items which were highly rated as disagreed were numbers 17 (I often feel like not going to my language class) and 6 (during a language class, I find myself thinking about things that have nothing to do with the course), with 81.9% and 78.7% respectively.

Interview
Iranian and Arab respondents' views and opinions about anxiety were further examined by asking them to comment on the questionnaire items through interviews.Although the quantitative analysis of these items gives a general picture of the participants' anxiety, it is far from reality to believe that the questionnaire data will provide us with their reasons for their anxiety.This is why we must make use of the follow-up data obtained, as discussed earlier, through interviews.
Due to the lack of space, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive qualitative analysis of participants' comments on every item, but common themes which shaped their assessments of the individual items most highly and least highly rated are extracted from the interview data.The representative comments are samples from all the comments reflecting a particular theme and are not meant to give an exhaustive view of all comments on that theme.

Iranians' Interviews
As it was mentioned in the previous section, item 5 was the one that was most highly rated, as agreed.Participants who participated in the interview were asked to elaborate on their choice.The following comments illustrate a number of common influences on their assessments: These types of classes not only help me to develop my language skills but also they are fun.In addition, I can learn new topics and become familiar with new opinions.These extra classes are useful because they increase my language knowledge.As they say, "practice makes perfect".
Language classes are so fun that although I may have weaknesses in my language knowledge, I like to take more classes.
Item 26 was the one that was most highly rated as disagreed.Respondents were asked to mention their reasons for their answers.The following comments reflect their views: When I compare my English classes to other subjects at the university, such as contemporary history or knowledge of family, I feel that it is more fun.So I like it.
Because I have enough knowledge of the language, I don't feel nervous in my language classes.I have stress a little bit, but generally, I feel more comfortable.I feel more comfortable in my language classes because I have gradually increased my language knowledge during the past years, and I have become more familiar with the foreign language.58

Arabs' Interviews
As it was shown earlier, item 19 was the one that was most highly rated as agreed.The following comments surfaced mainly in their interviews: I'm a shy person.So when I make a mistake, I feel embarrassed.But when the teacher tells me about my mistake, I'm both embarrassed and sad.I'd prefer the teacher tell me about my mistakes in a private conversation rather than in front of other students.When she corrects me in front of my classmates, I feel that I'm not as good as them.
In my opinion, teachers cannot put themselves in their students' shoes, so they think that we know everything.I mean, they shouldn't correct every mistake we make.The reality is that students need to make mistakes to learn without being reminded about their mistakes all the time.
Item 3 was the one that was most highly rated as disagreed.The following perspectives were expressed: Personally, I don't see any reason to tremble, but I think others might be afraid because they think what they are going to say might be wrong.I disagree with this statement myself, but I think this is related to the personality of the people.I mean, there are people who are shy and don't like to get out of their comfort zone.I'm not afraid of this at all because of the warm relationship that exists between the teacher and the students at the language centre.In fact, the atmosphere is so warm inside the class that I volunteer to answer the questions most of the time.The results of the independent samples t-test are presented in Table 2, which indicates that there is not a statistically significant difference between Arabs and Iranians regarding their foreign language anxiety (t=1.01,p=.163).However, this should not be implied that the results of the present study are not meaningful, as particular patterns emerged in the findings which need special attention.

Discussion
Analyzing the FLCAS questionnaire shows that a majority of Arab learners of Persian are afraid of being corrected by their teacher for every mistake they make.More specifically, the Arab students reported that they were afraid of making pronunciation or grammatical errors and being corrected by teachers in front of their classmates.The present finding seems to be consistent with other L2 research,h which found that when teachers correct students' errors, they may experience anxiety (e.g., Gopang & Bughio, 2015;Gregersen & Horwtiz, 2002).This anxiety might be related to the negative evaluation of others and the importance of social impressions the students are seeking.The anxiety may even be a result of being overwhelmed with the number of rules required for learning an L2 (Gopang & Bughio, 2015).
In order to deal with this problem, considering that low self-perception of communicative competence often results in increased levels of FLA (Bailey et al., 2000;MacIntyre et al., 1997;Onwuegbuzie et al., 1999), researchers have proposed that L2 teachers use teaching methods and techniques in their classrooms that emphasize on communicative fluency rather than linguistic accuracy.In this way, many studies have suggested that teachers incorporate pair work or group work into their classrooms as they lead to a non-threatening teaching environment (e.g., Humphries et al., 2015;Lee, 2002;Tsiplakides & Keramida, 2009).As Huashan (2019, p. 24) makes it clear, 'in the pair work context, students no longer feel their oral performance is assessed so that they are more engaged, paying more attention to fluency and communication instead of accuracy.Moreover, the appropriate type of feedback can also decrease FLA.For example, recasts with an explicit focus on linguistic characteristics have been considered a non-threatening corrective feedback technique which helps learners to understand their errors (Loewen & Philp, 2006).In other words, this type of feedback not only allows students to feel more comfortable in class but also enables them to recognize their errors.
In addition to experiencing anxiety due to teacher error correction, Arab students also mentioned their perception of their instructors' language as another source of FLA.This is reflected in their responses to item 29 of the FLCAS questionnaire, in which most of the Arab participants agreed with the statement, 'I get nervous when I don't understand every word the language teacher says.Previous research has shown that when L2 classes are taught by native speakers of the L2, the linguistic and cultural differences between students and teachers can result in students' FLA (e.g., Liu et al., 2006;Ohata, 2005).These differences often put students in trouble as they may not be able to distinguish between what teachers think is appropriate or inappropriate in the classroom (Gopang & Bughio, 2015).As Torres and Turner (2014, p. 85) argue, 'when students have difficulty understanding their instructors' speech and behaviours, they may experience anxiety about learning the FL [foreign language]'.This is especially true for the Arab students of the present study, as all of their teachers were native Persian speakers.
One way to alleviate this kind of anxiety is to encourage both teachers and students to understand and respect their cultural differences (Ohata, 2005).Yet another solution is to create a warm and positive classroom atmosphere in which all of the students are encouraged to express themselves regardless of their anxiety.As Williams and Andrade (2008) propose, teachers have a great responsibility to cause anxiety in their learners.In this way, it has been shown that L2 instructors who provide a supportive and positive language learning environment are more likely to reduce students' high levels of anxiety (Ewald, 2007).To achieve this aim, Huashan (2019, p. 33) proposes three main characteristics of good instructors: If the instructor was patient, students may suppose their spoken English and flawed grammar were understood.With teachers being friendly, students were more likely to share their opinions and were less concerned about negative evaluations.Humorous instructors can make the classroom atmosphere more active, thereby facilitating students' oral output.
Conducting a study on anxiety in an elementary school context, Wu (2002) found that learners with low language anxiety were more willing to attend additional L2 classes after school.There are similarities between the attitudes expressed in this study and those described by Wu (2002), as the majority of Iranian participants agreed with the statement, 'It wouldn't bother me at all to take more foreign language classes.In the same way, the second most disagreed statement was item 17, which reads as 'I often feel like not going to my language class'.Interestingly, this item was the second most disagreed statement by Arab students too.The results of the interviews further showed that both groups of participants considered attending additional classes not only good for improving their linguistic knowledge but also they considered it fun to participate in these types of classes.Not surprisingly, additional L2 classes are not considered anxiety-provoking by both Iranians and Arabs.
This might be attributed to the learners' previous language learning experiences as an influential factor which has been found to contribute to learners' FLA (Dewaele, 2002;Matsuda & Gobel, 2004).In other words, those who have positive past experiences in taking L2 classes go through lower levels of anxiety than their counterparts.On the other hand, students who have negative L2 experiences feel more anxious when learning an L2 in comparison to their classmates.
One more factor which needs special attention is learners' self-perception of their language ability, as it has often been considered a powerful predictor of anxiety in L2.In this way, previous studies have demonstrated that there is a negative relationship between FLA and self-concept variables that affect L2 learning, such as self-confidence and self-esteem (e.g., Clement et al., 1994;MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994;Mak & White, 1997).So, students with low selfconcepts are expected to experience high levels of anxiety in L2 classrooms.On the other hand, students with higher self-perception about their language ability tend to show lower levels of FLA.This study produced results which corroborate the findings of the previous work in the field, as a majority of Arab learners projected a great deal of selfconfidence in their agreement with the statement 'I feel confident when I speak in the foreign language class, and also many of the Iranian L2 learners disagreed with the statement 'I feel more tense and nervous in my language class than in my other classes These findings might be explained by reference to Greenberg et al.'s (1992) 'Terror Management theory According to this theory, people with high self-esteem are less likely to be anxious because self-esteem protects them from anxiety.
Considering that students with higher self-perceived L2 competence are more likely to have a more positive self-image and confidence, it is important for teachers to help students overcome their negative self-image and build confidence in learning and using the L2.For example, it has been suggested that starting with familiar topics before moving to more challenging topics in classroom discussions is an effective technique which can be used by teachers to build students' confidence in L2 contexts (Huashan, 2019).
Finally, this view that FLA is a concern of face in different cultures is supported by the findings of the present study.This is particularly true for the Iranian learners as most of them agreed with the statements 'I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in language class' and 'I worry about the consequences of failing my foreign language class.The majority of those who responded to these items indicated in their interviews that they were afraid of losing face.For example, one interviewee commented that 'nothing is worse than being laughed at by your classmates and losing your face'.Another interviewee said that 'this issue [saving face] is so important to me that I quit my studies if it threatens my face'.Overall, these results indicate that losing face is a main source of FLA for many L2 learners.
This fear of losing face and being resented by peers has its roots in the violation of acceptable internalized culturally-based classroom norms (Ohata, 2005).For example, talented students in some cultural contexts try not to stand out from their classmates as it is considered inappropriate regarding the cultural norms (Tsui, 1995).Due to the fact that speaking in front of peers before being fully prepared may result in losing face, the wait-time technique has been proposed as an effective face-saving mechanism for L2 learners (Mak, 2011).In this technique, L2 students are provided with enough wait time so that they can form their answers with more reasoning and details.

Conclusion
Due to globalization, learning an L2 for academic and business purposes has seen an increasing demand across the world in recent years.So, learning an L2 for both academic and non-academic purposes is a must in today's world.However, although there is an ever-increasing need to acquire an L2 all around the world, a large number of learners underachieve in L2 classrooms due to the high levels of FLA associated with the L2 learning process (Bailey et al., 2003).On the other hand, cross-cultural students experience certain adjustments and transitions in their new learning environments because of the existence of different cultural and educational systems (Wang et al., 2010).In this way, it is important for researchers to study anxiety from different cultural perspectives and in different cultural environments.Keeping this in mind, studying anxiety not only helps to find ways to create low-anxiety L2 environments in a specific culture but also makes students aware of cultural differences that may result in FLA.
This study was thus an attempt to emphasize on the uniqueness of every culture by looking into the FLA of two different groups of L2 learners (i.e., Iranians and Arabs) separately and comparing them to find their similarities and differences.It is hoped that the results of the present study encourage other L2 researchers to deal with different issues in their own culture to find the true reasons for the behaviour, including FLA, from their own perspective.As Dewaele (2017a, p. 444)

concludes,
We have learned that individual learners cannot be isolated from their geographical, social and historical context.In other words, two learners with identical psychological profiles may experience different levels of anxiety in the FL class and may attain very different levels of mastery in the FL depending on where they are in the world.

Table 1 :
Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics of the present study.Group Statistics

Table 2 :
Independent Samples T-Test