Krashen’s Affective Filter in Learning English as a Second Language among Primary School Students

Abstract

Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition focuses on the importance of affective filter that will be an intervening variable which affects the acquisition of the second language. The students, whether they are in primary or secondary classes, are get affected by some factors that become a barrier to acquire a language in addition to their mother tongue. One of the major affective factors is anxiety towards a new language which has an entirely different structure from their mother tongue. The main focus of the present study is to find out one of the affectivefilters that is “anxiety” to learn English as a second language among primary school students in Kerala. The normative survey method was used for the study. 152 primary school students were taken as a sample from the different schools of Kerala. The main variable is Anxiety towards learning English as a second language. Gender, medium of instruction and type of management are taken as categorical variables. Learning English Language Anxiety Inventory was administered to the 152 primary school students in Kerala. The result of the study revealed that medium of instruction influences the anxiety level of the students. The students who are enrolled in Government and Aided school have anxiety in learning English compared to Private school students. The reasons for these differences in the level of anxiety may be (i) due to the lack of input in the target language both from the teachers and from the surroundings, (ii) lack of infrastructure facility like language lab, technical support to familiarize the second Language. For overcoming such situations, they need to be provided a highly motivated and fearless learning environment.