摘要：It has been generally acknowledged that many an individual faces intrapersonal difficulties in learning a second/foreign language. Anxiety is one of them. The purpose of the present study was to investigate about the factors that cause language anxiety among English Department students at Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM) Pakistan and to devise strategies for reducing the effect of language anxiety. The researchers carried out the study by administering FLCAS (Horwitz et al., 1986) to 62 AWKUM students, and by conducting semi-structured interviews with 10 volunteer students. The findings from FLCAS and semi-structured interviews showed that the students felt anxious of making mistakes and about teachers’ correcting their mistakes in the classes; they felt nervousness about failing the exams; and, moreover, it was also found that the students’ poor socio-economic backgrounds developed a sense of marginalization among them vis-a-vis foreign language use. Again, the poor return rate of the FLCAS also shows the students’ feeling anxiety regarding foreign language. The study recommended that language teachers should adopt purely learners-centred teaching methods. A lowanxiety and supportive learning environment should be created inside the classrooms.
