The Relationship between Behavioral Activation System and Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS/BAS) with Anxiety of Speaking among English Learners

Learninga new language can be considered as a challenging task for learners, as they actually learn a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling, and performing. It can also be associated with experiencing anxiety which may inhibit their learning achievement. Anxiety-related behaviors are different in various countries.Foreign language classes are anxiety provoking for many students. In such contexts, they are required to communicate with their classmates in an unfamiliar language and are also evaluated while doing so. Having considerable levels of anxiety in the classroom seems natural since students try to communicate by not completely familiar instrument. 104 learners (41 males and 63 females) with the average age of 28/25 years (with the range of 17 to 37 years) were selected as the sample of the study by multistage random sampling among English learners attended to English institutes of Bonab in 2016 who had passed at least five semesters of language training. The participants first language was Azari, second language was Persian, and foreign language was English.In the present descriptive-correlational study with regression,English learners completed Gray-Wilson s Personality Questionnaire (GWPQ) and Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope s Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). The results indicated that there is a significant relationship between anxiety of speaking and both brain behavioral systems of inhibition (r=0.23, p 0.05) and activation (r=-0.55, p 0.01).The results of examining the relationship between learners anxiety of speaking and BIS and BAS indicated that more behavioral inhibition in the learners is leading to more anxiety of speaking and more behavioral activation in the learners cause decreased anxiety of speaking.