An Investigation of EFL Novice Teachers Causes of Teaching Anxiety and their Coping Strategies

Anxiety in language teaching and learning is not a new issue. However, there is little information about the anxiety faced by English as a foreign language (EFL) novice teacher, especially in Indonesian context. This study aims to find out the causes of anxiety in teaching English, strategies to overcome this anxiety, and school support in helping teachers manage their anxiety. This qualitative study used an online closed-ended questionnaires and interviews for data collection. Sixteen EFL novice teachers from seven junior high schools and nine senior high schools in Medan, Indonesia participated in this study. The findings reveal three causes of teaching anxiety experienced by the novice teachers, namely: student participation and class situation; material mastery; and lack of confidence. To overcome their anxiety, the teachers used some strategies which include better teaching preparation, establishing communication with students, doing warm up and ice breaking, and creating study groups. In relation to these findings, school support such as provision of teaching/learning resources and facilities, discretion to teachers, and teaching training could aid novice teachers manage their anxiety.


INTRODUCTION
Teachers play a critical role in managing the teaching and learning process in any class, including in English as a foreign language (EFL) one. A teacher's success in managing a class is determined by several factors, one of which is affective, such as interest, motivation, fear, and anxiety. Teacher anxiety, as one of the most important affective variables, plays a significant role in the success of classroom management in order to attain educational goals at the highest level possible. Anxiety is a term used to describe a person's nervousness, worries, tenseness, and a sense of uneasy suspense (Rachman, 2004;Spielberger, 1966). It emerges as a result of the unpredictability of an upcoming event or evaluation concern about the consequences of an event. Anxiety is so closely related to fear that the two terms are frequently used interchangeably.
In the context of teaching and learning, anxiety often manifests as a problem that interferes with people's ability to perform tasks. Due to a sense of pride, performance is critical for teachers when teaching in front of their students. However, while performing their teaching task, teachers often encounter challenges in their classrooms, which consequently levels up their anxiety (Hiver, 2016). Researchers have reported some causes of teaching anxiety, which include being confronted with unexpected question, inability to control the class, inability to control the class, lack of teaching experience, lack of self-confidence, lack of time, limited English proficiency, heavy workload, linguistic and (Norris et al., 1990); Martin & Yoder, 1985). This current study focuses on techniques for reducing anxiety in teaching foreign language as proposed by (Murray-Harvey et al., 2000) such as thinking positively, getting rid of negative images by doing physical things like walking a little, reading, listening to music, watching something. Then carry out professional strategies such as preparing lessons related to teaching, making varied learning strategies for students, establishing good communication with students, and giving awards to students. Another way to reduce anxiety is to turn to social networks, such as friends and family. Finally, teaching anxiety can also be overcome with institutional support from both the teacher and the school principal.
Although teaching anxiety has been the topic of discussion in some EFL contexts including in Indonesia, previous studies usually tend to examine the pre-service teachers' experience. This is understandable because pre-service teachers usually have no teaching experience. However, little has discussed the anxiety experienced by in-service teachers, particularly the novice ones. It is assumed that the more experienced a teacher is, the less anxiety she becomes. For this reason, this research was aimed to fill the gap by investigating whether in-service teachers also experience anxiety when teaching English classes. This research, thus focuses on in-service teachers who are still novices (less than 5-year teaching experience) in the teaching profession. To this end, the study was guided by the following research questions: What are the causes of teaching anxiety experienced by EFL novice teachers? How do EFL novice teachers manage their teaching anxiety? And What types of schools support are available for EFL novice teachers in managing their teaching anxiety?

METHOD
To answer the research questions, researchers used a qualitative design method. As stated by (Creswell & Creswell, 2017) the qualitative method is commonly used to investigate and comprehend how people or groups interpret the significance of a social or human problem. Because this research aims to find out the anxiety of EFL novice teachers experience when teaching a foreign language, this design is considered the most appropriate to use. This study involved 16 EFL novice teachers (less than 5 years of teaching experience) of junior and senior high schools in Medan, Indonesia. The names of the participant were sorted based on the interview time. For, instance, the first interviewed participant was named as participant 1, the second participant named as participant 2, and so forth. In detail, participants demographic data can be seen in table 1. This research was conducted from late November to mid-December 2022. Data was collected through an online closed-ended questionnaire that discusses the biggest factors that cause EFL novice teachers to experience anxiety in teaching English. The questionnaire was adopted from (Muchtar & Ode Sidu Marafad, 2020) study. Interviews was also conducted with each teacher with the aim to dig further information regarding their teaching anxiety. Each interview was lasted in 25 to 30 minutes. The interviews were audio recorded with the participants' consents and transcribed verbatim for data analysis.
The responses to the online closed-ended questionnaire were analyzed using frequency count, through which the data was presented in the form of a bar chart. Meanwhile, the results of the interviews were analyzed using content analysis by the coding pattern as proposed by (Miles et al., 2013). The researchers developed temporary codes based on the research questions addressed by the interview themes and questions. The transcripts were first meticulously evaluated and compared to identify similarities and differences before being re-read line by line to uncover emergent themes and subthemes.
Member checks were used to verify trustworthiness by delivering copies of the interview data and the results of data analysis to each participant. This procedure was carried out to guarantee that the data was valid and reliable for qualitative interpretation.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION Causes of Anxiety
The first research question addresses the causes of teaching anxiety experienced by EFL novice teachers whose data is collected in two ways, through the online closedended questionnaire and interviews. The data analysis carried out on the two data sources reveals three causes of anxiety, namely students' participation and class situation, learning material, and lack of confidence, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Causes of Teaching Anxiety
From data presented Figure 1, it is known that for the majority of the novice teachers in this study, the anxiety in teaching English is caused by student participation/class situation ( n = 12 participants), followed by their inability in mastering the teaching materials (n = 9 participants), and lack of confidence in teaching (n = 6 participants). These results are also corroborated by the data from interviews, which is presented in the following discussion.

Student Participation and Class Situation
Twelve of the sixteen teachers who took part in this study reported that their anxiety in teaching English arose as a result of student participation and/or class conditions. This generally happens when the responses they obtained from their students were not what they expected, as seen in Excerpt 1.
I felt anxious when I finished explaining but their response was just silence without asking or confirming anything from what I had explained, so I was confused whether they really understood or not. (Excerpt 1, Participant 9) Participant 9 experienced anxiety because none of her students responded after she delivered the lesson. She was especially concerned about not knowing whether or not her students grasped what she had presented. Another teacher shared similar experience. As seen in Excerpt 2, she believes that the lack of feedback from her students indicates that they do not grasp what she has stated.
There was no feedback they gave me, which probably means they have no understanding of the material that I had explained (Excerpt 2, Participant 1) As seen in the preceding extract, Participant 1 stated that if students remained silent and did not respond to what the instructor had explained, there would be no indication to student understanding of the content that the teacher had provided.
Another cause of anxiety for novice EFL teachers is the classroom situation, which is frequently unconducive and boisterous. This could be due to language issues preventing students from understanding what the teacher is saying.
The class situation that is not conducive where students are noisy and don't pay attention to me (when) teaching, because they don't understand what I'm saying. (Excerpt 3, Participant 1) Excerpt 3 demonstrates that unfavorable classroom conditions can also generate teaching anxiety. In this case, this condition was triggered by the teacher's usage of English. Because students did not comprehend what the teacher was saying, they couldn't concentrate and began making noise, which eventually made the teacher anxious.

Material Mastery
The inability to master the material was discovered to be the second source of anxiety. It can be noticed that 9 participants were anxious if they did not master the topics being discussed. One of them is Participant 2 who experiences anxiety related to mastery of the material, as seen in Excerpt 4 below.
If there's a topic that I'm not particularly knowledgeable about, I might feel worried. (Excerpt 4, Participant 2) Participant 2 admitted that her anxiety arose when she could not master the subject matter well. As a consequence, teachers may not be able to respond to student's criticality, as seen in Excerpt 5.
My anxiety when not preparing the material well is when dealing with students who are too critical and active in learning and I am unable to respond it. (Excerpt 5,Participant 16) Participant 16 confessed that if he did not have adequate preparation, his anxiety increased when confronted with critical students in learning who frequently ask out-ofthe-box questions or questions that he cannot answer.

Lack of Confidence
Six teachers cited a lack of confidence as the source of their anxiety. This is demonstrated in Excerpt 6.
I feel anxious when using English in teaching. This is because I have just entered my second year of teaching so I'm still getting used to it. (Excerpt 6, Participant) The teacher in Excerpt 6 believed that teaching skill, is like any other skills, requires practice to improve. However, because she is quite new to the teaching profession, she often feels anxious in front of the students. Other teachers stated that they were unable to relax and felt uneasy when teaching, causing them to stammer and making it difficult for students to follow the explanation, as seen in Excerpt 7. The effect that this anxiety will have on myself, I feel awkward when I teach, the lesson is not fully conveyed, so sometimes students get confused. (Excerpt 7, To summarize, when teachers do not master the teaching content, they become anxious, and their students become confused about the materials presented.

Coping Strategies
To overcome anxiety when teaching English to EFL students, the EFL novice teachers in this study reveal some of the strategies they use which will be discussed below.

Better Teaching Preparation
The first strategy carried out by the majority of the participants was to better prepare with the material they wished to teach before attending the classroom. This professional strategies in self-management, which relates to preparing things before lessons and the ability to prepare what to do when faced with difficult situations. Better preparation could help teachers avoid stammering in explanations, be more confident and look more competent in front of students. This strategy was employed by participant 7, as described in the following excerpt.
The strategy that I do, one of which is preparing or mastering the material thoroughly and correctly. So that when explaining, I am more confident so I don't experience anxiety. (Excerpt 8, Participant 7) Excerpt 8 reveals that the teacher overcomes her anxiety by ensuring that she has mastered the teaching materials well before she teaches her class, which consequently helps boost her self-confidence.

Communicating with Students
Some teachers indicated using this strategy to reduce their anxiety by initially establishing communication with their students about the class contract and regulations. This is a professional technique for controlling anxiety by talking with students, whereby the instructor and students appear to be working together to attain effective learning goals.
Usually, I will discuss first with students how to practice learning in the classroom, whether it's about learning contracts or rules in the class. So that the students and I know each other's responsibilities. (Excerpt 9, Participant 10) The teacher in excerpt 9 noted that discussing contracts and learning systems with students is crucial so that teachers and students are mutually responsible and there will be no anxiety between them because the discussion takes a middle road that will be enjoyable for both parties, teacher and student.

Doing Warm Up and Ice Breaking
This strategy is implemented by two teachers, who frequently warm up by taking a deep breath and engaging in some icebreaker activities with the students before beginning the teaching and learning process. These physical strategies are conducting activities such as walking for a short distance, holding something, or engaging in activities with students. This strategy is reported to be effective in reducing teaching anxiety as admitted by participant 11 in the following excerpt: I take a deep breath to calm down, then have an ice break with my student by doing some physical games, so I don't get nervous and they can also feel happy before the lesson started (Excerpt 10, Participant 11) Participant 11 mentioned that in order to avoid feeling anxious while teaching, she takes a deep breath to calm herself down and plays some games with her students before beginning the class to keep them from being tense. Using games in the classroom is one of the finest techniques for attaining learning objectives in a comfortable manner while also making it easy for teachers and students. Other strategies to de-stress in class include joking around and listening to music.

Creating study groups
The next strategy used by the EFL novice teachers is to create study groups so that all students can be actively participating in the class activities. This particular strategy is used when the anxiety they feel is caused by students' lack of participation either in class discussion or in doing assignment.
When my students do not respond to my questions or when the class becomes so noisy, I usually divide the students into small groups so they can discuss first in their groups before responding to my question. I could avoid my anxiety due to the student silence while the students can avoid boredom by doing their assignments in groups (Excerpt 11, Participant 3) Similar strategy is also used by participant 10 when she feels anxious due to her students' unresponsiveness when she explains the materials.
When they [the students] do not say anything even after I invite them to ask questions, I will ask them to discuss what I have explained in groups and then report it to me. By doing so, I save myself from anxiety of teaching with no feedback from my students (Excerpt 12, Participant 10).

School Support to Help Manage Teaching Anxiety
In addition to some strategies the teachers use to overcome their anxiety when teaching English, another theme was also emerged when analyzing the data from interview. The teachers report that some support the schools provide thelp them manage their teaching anxiety.

Teaching and Learning Resources and Facilities
A number of the teacher participants stated that it is very helpful for them when the schools provide them with sufficient teaching and learning resources, such as recent English books and links to teaching materials. Having abundance of these resources helps them with their class preparation, which in turns solve their anxiety regarding to their lack of material mastery. This can be seen in excerpt 13 below.
Yes, the school really helped me by providing books on English lessons because we all know that this subject is difficult to understand, especially from the writing of words that are different from the pronunciation. If there are no books, it will make students even more confused, and the link for teaching materials was used specifically during the Covid period but now it is used for students who have not received book stock because the books managed by the school are limited and can be used free of charge. (Excerpt 13, Participant 15') In the excerpt above, Participant 15 stated that the role of schools is very influential in managing teacher anxiety in teaching English, namely by providing free book facilities where all students can have English books. So that learning will be carried out well because students can see the contents of the book in the chapter being studied. Similar opinion is also shared by other teachers who believe that the facilities provided by schools help them either overcome or prevent anxiety when teaching English classes. The availability of supporting facilities in learning English, be it language labs, projectors, speakers, or internet networks is found to play very useful and important role for helping them with their anxiety.
With little experience, I feel easily anxious when I have to conduct my class through material presentation only. But since my school has a lot of learning facilities, like language labs, I can use it for listening or other language skill practice (Excerpt 14, Participant 3) When schools provide a variety of facilities, it makes it easier for teachers and students to perform teaching and learning process through diverse activities. Teachers, thus no longer have to worry about students being easily bored, which has been recognized as one of the most common causes of teaching anxiety.

Flexibility to Teachers
One of the causes of teaching anxiety is because teachers have to meet the educational goals set by the school. Regrettably, the need to attain these goals is not tied to the flexibility that teachers may have to do so. In many cases, teachers are denied the ability to select the greatest educational artifacts to bring into their classrooms. Schools dictate which books from which publishers should be utilized in classrooms. The teachers, thus believe that the school's role in allowing teachers flexibility in the process of teaching and learning may assist them lessen their anxiety. They furthermore claimed that it would be useful if schools do not require them to make students become fluent in English, as seen in the following excerpt. I am lucky that my school gives me flexibility in conducting the teaching and learning process in my class. Although we have English-speaking program in which students must speak only English in mandatory classes with the purpose to expose them with English environment, my school does not set a specific target that all students must be able to speak English. It helps take anxiety away from me and my students could enjoy the program. (Excerpt 14, Participant 14)

English Teaching Training
According to the participants, another form of school support that can help them with their anxiety is the provision of training and consultation regarding the issues and techniques found in teaching English. Participants 6 and 13, for example stated that the training they received from school helped them deal with their anxiety, which was caused by the challenges encountered during each teaching session. Furthermore, the consultation program provides provide them with the support system they need to overcome We have regular training and discussion for teachers on various topics, including practical and effective strategies to deal with students. I could use the knowledge in my classrooms to overcome the issues which may cause anxiety if I don't know how address it. (Excerpt 15, Participant 6) When I experience challenges or problems in my class that I cannot solve by myself, I can share it through one-on-one consultation. I don't need to feel worried because I know I have people who support me (Excerpt 15, Participant 13)

DISCUSSION
In a broader perspective, this study concludes that teaching anxiety is a feeling of tension before, during, and after the teaching process which has an adverse effect on the learning and teaching process. The findings of the present research revealed that there is an anxiety level of novice EFL teachers. In fact, it is not only pre-service teachers who experience teaching anxiety, even experienced teachers also experience a dilemma about their anxiety about teaching as convinced by (Floden & Clark, 1988). The number of years of experience and the difficulties academics encounter at work are related, according to (Klassen & Chiu, 2010) research. It is alleged that although it's true that novice instructors have a difficult time teaching the material; however, middle and late career stages also present difficulties that may affect satisfaction. As analyzed above, it was found that based on the results of online closed questionnaires and in-depth interviews, it was stated that twelve participants agreed that their teaching anxiety was most significantly caused by student participation/class situation. This is consistent with the findings of (Pasaribu & Harendita, 2018;Kim & Kim, 2004), who discovered numerous causes of teacher anxiety, one of which is due to student participation in learning. The teachers expressed concern when their students produced little to no response after they finished delivering the content which reveal that if there is no feedback or poor student responses, teacher anxiety would grow. In line with that, other study also said that one of the reasons of teacher anxiety in the classroom is poor student behavior (Ali, 2015).
Then, another causes of anxiety that faced oleh nine participants is material mastery which is in line with the research of (Kim & Kim, 2004) who conclude that lack of preparation of material before teaching is one of the causes of teachers experiencing anxiety in teaching that the result of which is that the teacher will have difficulty responding to student criticality. This anxiety is shown by (Gardner & Leak, 1994) who found that teachers with high teaching anxiety has difficulty standing in front of students and answering unexpected student questions. This view is also corroborated by a study by (Ameen et al., 2002) which shows that the trigger factors for teaching anxiety are unable to answer unexpected student questions. This situation may result in students losing interest in studying English and doubting the teacher's competence. This is consistent with (Horwitz, 1996) findings that teachers are frequently concerned when students question their abilities to teach English. In addition, 6 participants also agree that they feel anxiety when they lack of confidence in their capacity to instruct student using English language is usually closely related to the lack of teaching experience (Pasaribu & Harendita, 2018).
This research further investigates the teaching strategies used by novice teachers to manage their teaching anxiety. Regarding the problem, participants stated that they could overcome it by using better teaching preparation, communicating with students, doing warm up and ice breaking and creating study group. This finding is supported by the previous study of ( Murray-Harvey et al., 2000), there are five types of personal coping mechanisms: cognitive, physical, behavioral, emotional, and rational. The indicates that some teachers used personal coping mechanisms, particularly cognitive mechanisms, to lessen their anxiety. The techniques include using humor, arranging and preparing, getting close to the students, speaking positively, rewarding the students, and accepting that they will feel nervous during the course of their learning. Regardless of the strategy they have implemented, it turns out that EFL novice teachers not only need support from within themselves but they also need support from the school to manage teaching anxiety where many of them feel feedback when the school cares about the problem of teaching anxiety. As for the form of support from the school, such as providing teaching and learning facilities, providing flexibility and full trust to teachers in teaching, and holding English teaching training. This result is consistent with other studies that highlight the value of administrators or supervisors in assisting teachers in overcoming teaching anxiety. (Norris et al., 1990;Martin & Yoder, 1985). Thus, institutional support is crucial in reducing teacher stress. Because of this, it is crucial for the school to offer encouragement and non-threatening evaluation for novice teachers.
The findings of this research can provide awareness that it turns out that teachers, especially novice English teachers, even though being an educator does not mean that they do not have challenges that are worrying either from themselves or from students. For this reason, the authors hope that as a teacher, they must be able to manage their anxiety, as has been stated in terms of the strategies teachers use in managing teaching anxiety. And also to the school should also care about teachers who teach at school so that they are able to contribute well in teaching so as to produce excellent students.
Regardless of the results of this study, certain limitations should be noted, such as the small number of participants and the lack of data collecting. In terms of participant numbers, this study included just 16 EFL novice teachers from a variety of schools at both the junior and high school levels. In this study, only two instruments for data collection were employed, an online questionnaire with close-ended questions and interview. Further studies could involve a bigger number of participants, modify the research context, and utilize more instruments to collect data. Furthermore, because this current study employed a qualitative design, future studies utilizing a quantitative technique or a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches are deemed necessary to be conducted to provide robust information regarding teaching anxiety and strategies to deal with it.
Every teachers have different learning problems in their class, both pre-service teachers and novice teachers. Because, the teaching period also affects the level of anxiety experienced by teachers. For this reason, teachers should be able to use the strategies suggested as already presented in this study to be able to manage teaching anxiety, especially in the context of teaching English to EFL students. In accordance with the suggestion stated by (Jokhio et al., 2020) different strategies are used in different contexts. For this reason, it is recommended that teachers prepare strategies in advance so they don't worry when teaching so they can create a fun and conducive learning atmosphere.
The results of this study can be used as a reference for future researchers who wish to conduct a case study regarding the anxiety of teaching English to EFL students by English teachers in different contexts such as in teaching reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In the future, the other researchers should investigate whether in-service teachers who have experience of more than five years also have anxiety in teaching English to EFL students and also which part of learning English they feel more anxious in teaching.

CONCLUSION
In relation to this research findings, it can be concluded that novice teachers who teach English to EFL students also experience anxiety in teaching despite the context that they have become in-service English teachers. The purpose of this research is to find out what causes EFL novice teachers to feel anxiety in teaching, what strategies are used, and how the schools can support them to help manage this anxiety. For this reason, this research has addressed three questions. Regarding the first question on causes of anxiety, it is found that there are three causes of anxiety experienced by EFL novice teachers in this study; student participation and class situation, material mastery, and lack of confidence. To address the second question, four coping strategies for anxiety have been identified, namely better preparation before teaching, building communication with students, doing warm up and ice breaking, and creating study groups. Finally, to answer the third question regarding the support that schools can provide to help EFL novice teachers manage their anxiety, the findings reveal three aspects, namely teaching/learning resources and facilities, flexibility to teachers, and training and consultation for English teachers.