Yetkin, R. Alagözlü, N. (2022). Exploring EFL student teachers’ anxieties in distance education. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET), 9(3). 1343-1355. Received : 12.04.2022 Revised version received : 12.06.2022 Accepted : 15.06.2022 EXPLORING EFL STUDENT TEACHERS’ ANXIETIES IN DISTANCE EDUCATION (Research Article) Correspondence: Ramazan Yetkin* Hacettepe University, Turkey ryetkinn@gmail.com Nuray Alagözlü Hacettepe University, Turkey nurayalagozlu@gmail.com Biodata(s): Ramazan Yetkin is a research assistant at Hacettepe University Faculty of Education Department of Foreign Language Education English Language Teaching Section in Ankara, Turkey. Nuray Alagözlü is a Professor at Hacettepe University Faculty of Education Department of Foreign Language Education English Language Teaching Section in Ankara, Turkey. Copyright © 2014 by International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET). ISSN: 2148-225X. Material published and so copyrighted may not be published elsewhere without written permission of IOJET. mailto:ryetkinn@gmail.com mailto:nurayalagozlu@gmail.com http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4688-509X http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9868-4399 Yetkin & Alagözlü 1344 EXPLORING EFL STUDENT TEACHERS’ ANXIETIES IN DISTANCE EDUCATION Ramazan Yetkin ryetkinn@gmail.com Nuray Alagözlü nurayalagozlu@gmail.com Abstract The role of affective factors in language education is undeniable, and anxiety as one of the most studied affective factors plays a significant role in understanding the psychological constructs during this education process. Many studies regarding anxiety, teacher anxiety, and classroom anxiety have been already conducted, yet anxiety studies concerning EFL student teachers are rare and need further elaboration. In such a study context, the present study aimed at disclosing EFL student teachers’ anxieties about their microteaching and teaching practicum. A total of 123 EFL student teachers participated in the study. Arising from a quantitative perspective, the data were collected through a 5-point Likert-type scale titled “Foreign Language Student Teacher Anxiety Scale (FLSTA)” (Merç, 2010). The results revealed that EFL student teachers had a moderate level of anxiety. Inspection of gender and grade differences over anxiety levels indicated that grade made a significant difference on FLSTA, but not gender. Keywords: anxiety, student teacher, affective factors, EFL learners, teacher education 1. Introduction “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.” (Natalie Goldberg) Understanding the role of stress in language education is crucial because of its clear impact on the language learning and teaching process that is clearly defined in the anxiety literature (e.g. Gardner & Macintyre, 1993). As one of the most important affective variables, anxiety plays a significant role in education including the language learning process. Defined as a “subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” (Spielberger, 1983, p. 15), anxiety places an important role in teacher education as well (e.g. Thompson, 1963). That’s why coping with anxiety and trying to lessen learners’ anxieties in the classroom hold an important place in education. Foreign language anxiety, meanwhile, is “a distinctive complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (Horwitz et al, 1986, p. 128). It refers to anxiety attached to a foreign language, especially during the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Yet, it also impacts learners’ performance in other areas including science and mathematics (Horwitz et al, 1986). Even though foreign language anxiety is mostly attached to learners, it also affects teachers as well. According to Horwitz (1996), teachers who experience a high level of anxiety are inclined to speak less in a foreign language and interact less with the students. Likewise, it also affects teachers to teach effectively (Horwitz, 1996). In short, it should be noted that anxiety could impact both teachers and learners in a similar mailto:ryetkinn@gmail.com mailto:nurayalagozlu@gmail.com International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2022, 9(3), 1343-1355. 1345 vein and student teachers are no exception. Foreign language student teacher anxiety is a recent notion in anxiety studies referring to student teachers’ anxieties during their teaching practice. Merç (2010) views student teacher anxiety as different from teacher anxiety because student teachers are not real teachers yet, but they are on the way to becoming teachers. That’s why their anxiety types and the impact of these anxiety types on their education could be enormously different. So far, few studies (e.g. Agustiana, 2014; Tüfekçi-Can, 2018; Merç, 2011; Ipek, 2016) have been conducted on foreign language student teacher anxieties originating mostly from a qualitative perspective, and more studies are needed to shed light on student teacher anxiety. In that regard, the present study aims at exploring EFL student teachers’ anxiety types and levels from a quantitative perspective. Following research questions were formulated to explore the current research; 1. What is the level of foreign language student teacher anxiety (FLSTA) during their teaching in English? 2. Is there any effect of grade (junior- non-practice & senior-practice) on participants’ FLSTA? 3. Is there any effect of gender (males &females) on participants' FLSTA? 2. Literature Review Anxiety, as one of the most important elements of affective variables, is defined as a state of apprehension, and nervousness resulting from something that is intimidating (Scovel, 1978) that includes “fear, apprehension, and hope referred to the future” (Thompson, 1963, p. 435). Anxiety is “a complex, multidimensional phenomenon” (Young, 1991, p. 434), which is mostly “… associated with an arousal of atomic nervous system” (Spielberger, 1983, p. 15). Macintyre and Gardner (1991) included three anxiety categories; trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety. Trait anxiety is explained as stable anxiety (Macintyre, 1999), state anxiety as changing anxiety (Spielberger, 1976), and situation- specific anxiety as a sort of anxiety triggered by a particular situation (Chan & Wu, 2004). Similarly, another categorization of anxiety has been seen in anxiety literature as facilitating and debilitating anxiety. Facilitating anxiety motivates learners to acquire new tasks, debilitating anxiety encourages learners to get away from new tasks (Scovel, 1978). Even though anxiety is seen as something negative, Scovel (1978) states that it cannot be attributed to one-dimensional issues. Moreover, Oxford (1999) stated that a moderate level of anxiety could lead learners’ learning process up to peak levels, yet it also can hinder that process if the level of anxiety is too high. That sort of harmful anxiety could trigger worry and doubt among learners that leads learners to refrain from their studies (Oxford, 1999). Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) is a special type of anxiety attributed to foreign language classrooms. It is defined as “a distinctive complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (Horwitz et al., 1986, p. 128). Young (1991) indicated six causes of language anxiety; personal and interpersonal anxieties, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language teaching, instructor-learner interactions, classroom procedures, and language testing. Many studies on anxiety indicated that anxiety is an important factor that intervenes in the language learning process (Preece, 1979; Saito & Samimy, 1996; Thompson, 1963; Young, 1991). However, Horwitz et al. (1986) were the leading researchers conceptualizing foreign language classroom anxiety in their seminal work. They asserted that foreign language anxiety is a different tension compared to general anxiety and it mainly resulted from three main factors: communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. Communication apprehension is defined as refraining from speaking in a foreign language before the public; fear of negative evaluation refers to Yetkin & Alagözlü 1346 the fear of making mistakes and being evaluated accordingly by peers and teachers, and test anxiety refers to the fear of failing in test and experiencing unwanted outcomes resulting from that failure in a classroom setting. Horwitz et al. (1986) also developed their well- known scale “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)” under the aforementioned three factors that leads many following researchers (e.g. Arnaiz & Guillén, 2012; Korkmaz & Mirici, 2021; Özer & Yetkin, 2022; Yetkin & Özer, 2022) and draws the boundaries of foreign language anxiety studies until today. Student Teacher Anxiety (STA) is a unique type of anxiety attached to student teachers’ tensions, doubts, and worries, especially during their teaching practicum carried out in real classrooms before students. Teaching practice is defined as a period in which student teachers carry out the practice of what they have learned so far (Ogonor & Badmus, 2006) that let them be prepared for school and real life (Danner, 2014). There is research evidence that teaching practicum leads student teachers to anxiety (Alpan et al., 2014; Kokkinos et al., 2016), though it also helps them to gather experience and improve their teaching skills. Student teacher anxiety studies disclose many causes of anxiety, yet each of them is mainly attached to three main sources: supervising or partner teachers, students, and lesson planning and preparation. In one of the earlier studies on student teacher anxiety, Thompson (1963) revealed that supervising teachers’ expectations were their main source of anxiety. Preece (1979) noted that anxiety is a major cause of classroom management problems. They also included that a significant decrease happens in the entire group’s anxiety overtime during their teaching practice experience. Hart (1987) was one of the pioneer researchers in student teacher anxiety studies in which he conceptualized student teacher anxiety and its impacts on preceding studies by his factors of student teacher anxiety and scale. In his paper, Hart (1987) developed a scale named “The Student Teacher Anxiety Scale (STAS)” to test student teachers’ anxieties during practicum including four-factor as sources of anxiety: evaluation anxiety, class control anxiety, teaching practice requirement anxiety, and pupil and professional concerns anxiety. It was revealed that evaluation anxiety was the main source of student teacher anxiety followed by class control and teaching practice requirements, each has also correlated with pupil disruption. In a similar but cross-cultural study, Morton et al. (1997) also tried to indicate Canadian student teachers’ anxieties in comparison to Hart’s (1987) British students by utilizing an adapted version of Hart’s (1987) scale. It was reported that Canadian students indicated evaluation anxiety as their main concern similar to British students. It was reported that even a short period of practice reduces anxieties experienced in classrooms similar to Preece’s (1979) results. Foreign Language Student Teacher Anxiety (FLSTA) is a recent study topic in anxiety literature that is mainly interested in FLSTA related to their teaching practice. It is a dimension of larger student teacher anxiety studies but differs in one crucial point: the inclusion of a foreign language. The use of a foreign language in the classroom is solely a source of anxiety; therefore, studies concerning foreign language student teacher anxiety should be treated cautiously compared to general student teacher anxiety. Merç (2015a) is one of the leading figures in foreign language student teacher anxiety studies indicating that foreign language student teachers face the highest levels of anxiety compared to all other teacher education disciplines. Few studies exclusively touch upon FLSTA have been conducted so far inclusively in the Turkish context. In the Indonesian setting, Agustiana (2014) revealed eight main concerns of student teachers during their practicum: observation of their teaching activity by teacher/supervisor, lack of experience in teaching, the stress of the first day of teaching, managing practicum assessment, having a class with many students, grammar teaching, fear of student’s questions, and drawing students’ attentions. Lack of experience in teaching and International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2022, 9(3), 1343-1355. 1347 materials were reported to be the main concern of student teachers in Indonesia. In the Turkish context, Merç (2011) reported six main causes of anxiety during teaching practicum out of his qualitative study: students and class profiles, classroom management, teaching procedures, being observed, mentors, and miscellaneous. Similarly, İpek (2016) revealed five factors of anxiety during teaching practice: making mistakes, fear of failure, using the native language, teaching students at a particular language proficiency level, and teaching a particular skill. In their mixed-method study, Tum (2015) tried to reveal sources of anxiety of student teachers of English. Fear of making mistakes and negative evaluation were the main concern of student teachers. They also reported that seeing senseless to their peers, partners, and students could be also the source of their anxieties. Tüfekçi-Can (2018) took a different path to explain student teacher anxieties, but they also find out how to overcome anxiety-provoking factors. After analysis of qualitative data obtained from 25 practicum student teachers of English, they listed recommendations to reduce student teachers’ anxieties; (i) FLTA can be included in the curriculum by putting forward some concrete resolutions on overcoming anxiety-provoking factors, (ii) the pre- service EFL teachers should be trained cognitively, affectively and socio-culturally on overcoming anxiety-provoking factors, (iii) governmental precautions should be implemented urgently. Only under these circumstances, would pre-service EFL teachers be trained on teaching practicum effectively, (iv) the pre-service EFL teachers should be informed on many sources of teaching aspects as teaching practicum is the last phase of being a teacher, (v) the practice teachers should have in-service training on teaching practicum. If they do not have in-service training related to teaching practicum courses, they should not be appointed as practice teachers for pre-service EFL teachers. 3. Method 3.1. Research Design In the current study, the research is shaped around quantitative data collection and analysis procedures. According to Dörnyei (2007), quantitative data deals with numerical data obtained from questionnaires and surveys. Quantitative research, “is systematic, rigorous, focused, and tightly controlled, involving precise measurement and producing reliable and replicable data that is generalizable to other contexts” (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 34). In that regard, numerical data was obtained by using questionnaires and analyzed quantitatively in order to deal with large data and be able to generalize the study outcomes. 3.2. Setting and Participants The main aim of the present study was to explore EFL student teachers’ sources of anxieties throughout their microteaching and practice teaching. A total of 123 EFL student teachers (8 males and 115 females & 23 juniors and 97 seniors) from different universities participated in the study. Participants were included by using the snowball sampling method and data were collected using online questionnaires. All the participants were either junior or senior students studying in an ELT department in Turkey. The student teachers have conducted either microteaching (junior &non-practice group) in their classrooms or teaching practice (senior-practice group) in primary or secondary schools. Yetkin & Alagözlü 1348 Table 1. Demographics of participants Demographics n % Gender Male 8 6.5 Female 115 93.5 Grade Junior 26 21.1 Senior 97 78.9 Total 123 100 3.3. Instrumentation The data of the study were collected by using questionnaires. Two main questionnaires were utilized in the study: The Personal Information Form and Foreign Language Student Teacher Anxiety Scale. Both of the research instruments were converted into online questionnaires so that collection of data would be feasible during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Personal Information Form was constructed by the researcher to meet the needs of the study and aimed at reaching individual data from each participant. The form included questions about participants’ age, gender, grade, GPA value, and type of practicum school. Individual differences are of high importance in second language studies and they could impact participants’ attitudes towards the ongoing studies. This form is attached to the main instrument during the data collection. Foreign Language Student Teacher Anxiety Scale (FLSTAS) was used as the main instrument and data collection tool of the current study. The Scale was originally developed by Merç (2010) to measure practicum students’ anxieties during their teaching practice. The original scale was in a 5-point Likert type including 27 items under six factors. In the present study, an adapted version of the scale was used due to slight changes in the study group and setting. After the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, an adapted version of FLSTAS including 18 items under four factors: relationship with the mentors, language proficiency, feeling about academic incompetence, and student effects were constructed and used in the present study. Table 2. Reliability results for FLSTAS Factors Number of items α Relationship with the mentors 5 .81 Language proficiency 6 .89 Feeling about academic incompetence 4 .82 Student effects 3 .67 FLSTA total 18 .93 3.4. Data Collection and Analysis The data were collected during participants teaching practice through the aforementioned questionnaires. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic and distance education requirements, both questionnaires were entered into an online survey and disseminated to the population through snowball sampling. The data were collected towards the middle of the semester so that each student would experience teaching in real classrooms. Before the administration, participants were informed about the study and administration of the questionnaires, and their consent was asked before completion of the tools. It is estimated that the completion of the questionnaires lasted for 30 minutes on average. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2022, 9(3), 1343-1355. 1349 The obtained data were entered into SPSS 25 software for further analysis. Firstly, the questionnaire items were checked for reverse statements. Then, the data were subjected to a test of normality so that further analysis of the data (parametric or non-parametric) would be decided. Results of the mean-trimmed mean, Kolmogorov- Smirnov test, Q-Q plots, and Histogram graph indicated the normal distribution of the data. Descriptive statistics were used to see participants’ agreement levels with anxiety-provoking factors. The difference among student teachers regarding their individual differences was analyzed through comparison tests. A one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was utilized to see differences among participants. 4. Findings The findings section is designed to present the results of the study obtained from the statistical analysis. The main results of the current study are given below by using tabulations ordered according to research questions. The detailed results of the study were presented both in the tables and in the explanations. Participants' levels of agreement over factors of FLSTA were revealed by making use of descriptive results. Descriptive statistics were run to indicate the mean and standard deviations of both each factor and combined total factor as seen in Table 3. Table 3. Descriptive results for FLSTA factors Factors- Sources of FLSTA x̄ SD Student effects 2.89 1.01 FLSTA total 2.79 1.01 Relationship with the mentors 2.65 1.01 Language proficiency 2.62 1.05 Feeling about academic incompetence 2.35 1.05 As seen in Table 3, participants held moderate levels of anxiety towards their teaching practicum experience (x̄ = 2.79, SD= 1.01). Among the individual factors seen as sources of anxiety during teaching practicum, the impacts of students held the highest position and agreement level among participants (x̄ = 2.89, SD= 1.01) followed by relationship with mentors (x̄ = 2.65, SD= 1.01). feeling about academic incompetence was the factor got the lowest agreement level among participants (x̄ = 2.35, SD= 1.05) indicating that student teachers did not feel anxious about their academic capabilities to teach in real classrooms. Participants' agreement levels over FLSTA factors were inspected after they were grouped as junior and senior students in accordance with their grade levels. Descriptive analysis was used to show how junior students conceive anxiety-provoking factors during their teaching experience. Descriptive results were presented in Table 4 for junior students. Table 4. Descriptive results for non-practice- junior group Factors- Sources of FLSTA x̄ SD FLSTA total 3.22 1.11 Language proficiency 3.15 1.39 Relationship with the mentors 3.12 1.35 Student effects 3.11 .98 Feeling about academic incompetence 2.94 1.50 Yetkin & Alagözlü 1350 As seen in Table 4, junior student teachers held a moderate agreement level towards foreign language student anxiety factors on the combined dependent variables (x̄ = 3.22, SD= 1.11). Among individual factors, language proficiency was the highest-graded factor (x̄ = 3.15, SD= 1.39), whereas feeling about academic incompetence was the lowest graded factor (x̄ = 2.94, SD= 1.50). Opposing to junior student teachers’ anxiety conceptions, senior students held moderate agreement &disagreement towards foreign language student teacher anxiety factors on the combined variables (x̄ = 2.68, SD= .99. Opposing junior student teachers, the student effects (x̄ = 2.85, SD= .99) factor was the highest-graded factor among senior student teachers. Feeling about academic incompetence was the lowest graded factor (x̄ = 2.18, SD= .89) indicating that senior students are well equipped in terms of language skills and theoretical knowledge, yet dealing with students in a real classroom such as the issue of classroom management is a key matter for anxiety. Detailed results for senior students were presented in Table 5. Table 5. Descriptive results for practice-senior group Factors- Sources of FLSTA x̄ SD Student effects 2.85 .99 FLSTA total 2.68 .77 Relationship with the mentors 2.53 .90 Language proficiency 2.48 .93 Feeling about academic incompetence 2.18 .89 In order to measure any difference among participants’ approaches to factors of FLSTA considering their grade difference was scrutinized by using a one-way between-groups MANOVA. Four factors of relationship with mentors, language proficiency, feeling about academic incompetence, and student effects were entered into the equation as dependent variables. Preliminary analysis was conducted to check assumptions of MANOVA including normality, linearity, outliers, homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices, and multicollinearity. The assumption testing indicated no serious violations for further analysis. Table 6. Wilks’ Λ for differences in FLSTA between 3rd and 4th grade EFL student teachers Wilks’ Λ F (4, 110) p Partial eta2 Grades .903 2.96 .02 .09 p= .05 As seen in Table 6, there is a statistically significant difference between juniors and seniors on the combined dependent variables, F (4, 110) = 2.961, p = .023; Wilks’ Λ = .903; partial eta2 = .097. A further inspection of group differences on individual factors indicated that two factors reached statistical significance after Bonferroni corrected alpha level of .125 were feelings about academic incompetence F (1, 113) = 8.593, p = .004; partial eta2 = .071., and language proficiency, F (1, 113) = 6.679, p = .011; partial eta2 = .056. An examination of mean scores indicated that junior students (x̄ =2.94) were more anxious toward feeling about academic incompetence than their senior counterparts (x̄ = 2.18). Likewise, junior students (x̄ =3.15) presented more anxious behavior toward their language proficiency than senior students (x̄ =2.48). Factors of relationship with the mentors and student effects yielded similar results with no statistically significant difference noted. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2022, 9(3), 1343-1355. 1351 Similarly, in order to measure any difference among participants’ approaches to factors of FLSTA considering their grade difference was scrutinized by using a one-way between- groups MANOVA as presented in Table 7 below. Table 7. Wilks’ Λ for differences in FLSTA between male and female EFL student teachers Wilks’ Λ F (4, 110) p Partial eta2 Gender .926 2.18 .07 .07 p= .05 Four factors of relationship with mentors, language proficiency, feeling about academic incompetence, and student effects were entered into the equation as dependent variables. Preliminary analysis was conducted to check assumptions of MANOVA including normality, linearity, outliers, homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices, and multicollinearity. The assumption testing indicated no serious violations for further analysis. There was no statistically significant difference between males and females on the combined dependent variables, F (4, 110) = 2.182, p = .076; Wilks’ Λ = .926; partial eta2 = .074. 5. Discussion and Conclusions This study focused on EFL student teachers anxieties and anxiety-provoking factors during their microteaching and teaching practicum in distance education carried out due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The descriptive results indicated that student teachers were moderately anxious considering all four factors of FLSTA. An inspection of mean values showed that the effects of students held the highest agreement level among participants whereas feeling about academic incompetence held the lowest level of anxiety among participants. Relatively higher levels of anxiety towards student effects could arise from student teachers’ anxieties towards classroom management issues. Previous studies (e.g. Ekşi & Yakışık, 2016; Morton et al., 1997) indicated that classroom management is a key issue leading to anxiety. Kyriacou and Stehphens (1999) also noted that ‘creating an orderly classroom’ is a source of anxiety among participants. On the other hand, the lowest anxiety towards academic incompetence could be due to the experience gathered during teaching in real classrooms online. The data of the present study were collected towards the middle of the semester to make sure that each of the participants had some experience in teaching. Through this experience, student teachers could make use of their vast theoretical knowledge in real practice and this could lower their anxieties regarding their academic knowledge background. The inspection of mean values separately by using descriptive statistics indicated that junior and senior students held different anxiety-provoking factors, and junior students were having relatively higher levels of anxieties on the combined and individual factors. Even though senior students had a completely moderate level of anxiety toward teaching practice and students in the classroom were their main anxiety concern, junior students indicated that language proficiency was their main concern in teaching opposing to what Mirici and Sarı (2021) found that experience did not make any difference in participants’ levels of anxiety. This result could not be explained by the lack of language skills among junior students or the vast difference between junior and senior students in language proficiency, but by experience. Even though junior students have already completed many of their theoretical ELT courses according to their curriculum and conducted some microteaching before the classroom, they have not yet experienced teaching practice in a real classroom as senior student teachers did. Therefore, they seemed to be more inclined to have hesitation towards their language skills and also inclined to accept their anxieties. However, senior student Yetkin & Alagözlü 1352 teachers have already experienced both observation and teaching practice in real classrooms, so they were aware of the realities and demands of real classrooms for practice teaching. Similar to the descriptive results presented above, the difference between the third (junior & non-practice) and fourth (senior & practice) grade student teachers reached statistical significance on both dependent and individual variables even after Bonferroni correction by using MANOVA. The results of the advanced statistical analysis indicated that there was a significant difference between junior and senior students on dependent variables meaning that when all the variables are combined. When each variable was analyzed further, it was also seen that junior students were highly anxious than senior students on feeling of academic incompetence and language proficiency factors that also reached statistical significance. The difference between student teachers could mostly occur due to experience during their undergraduate education. Practice teaching takes place in the last year of undergraduate education and junior students don’t experience teaching practice even though they experience some microteaching in real classrooms. Therefore, lack of teaching practice experience could trigger their anxiety, especially towards their academic and language-related skills in actual classrooms. Agustiana (2014), for instance, indicated that lack of teaching experience could trigger anxiety among student teachers. Likewise, making mistakes, fear of failure (İpek, 2016), or thought of fluency in language (Mosaddaq, 2016) were reported to be sources of anxiety. To this end, student teachers with more experience could tend to be less anxious. On the course of gender, the study results indicated that there was no significant difference between males and females regarding their conception of anxiety-provoking situations during their teaching practicum. Gender studies have always yielded different results including studies on anxiety, for this reason, more studies with similar numbers are needed to indicate clearly how it impacts different gender groups' approaches to anxiety. In the present study, the gender difference was not presented, and an imbalance in the number of participants could be one of the reasons behind this outcome. In literature, there are confusing results regarding gender and anxiety relations. In his study exploring FLSTA and self- efficacy, Merç (2015b) did not provide any gender difference and noted that gender was not a predictor of anxiety among participants. On the contrary, Arnaiz and Guillén (2012) reported females experienced more anxiety than males. Yet, it was also said that this anxiety difference could be due to either females tend to underrate their performance (Benson et al., 1994) or there is no real gender difference regarding anxiety but females are ready to accept it (Arnaiz & Guillén, 2012). Likewise, females are culturally seen to be more anxious because they learned from the environment to be more apprehensive (Morton et al., 1997). Therefore, more studies are needed to present more robust and conclusive outcomes on gender differences and their impact on student teacher anxiety. All in all, foreign language student teacher anxiety is a reality in teacher education programs and it should be dealt with the inclusion of all the parties taking action in this process. Besides a good theoretical education, supervisors should guide students starting from their microteaching on how to present a course before the class through feedback sessions. During the practicum, supervisors and mentors should be welcoming and approachable, and available when student teachers need them. Feedback sessions including material training should also be organized. Student teachers should be willing to use their theoretical knowledge in real practice. They should be ready for students’ questions and classroom management problems before their teaching practice so that they could make the necessary preparation. Student teachers should also organize courses with related materials. Lastly, managers should create a friendly atmosphere for visiting student teachers so that their anxiety levels could not increase due to out-of-class causes. 6. Recommendations for Further Studies International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2022, 9(3), 1343-1355. 1353 In the present study, a quantitative approach was applied to discover foreign language student teachers’ anxieties during their microteaching and practice teaching in distance education. Further studies could devise a mixed-method approach to see any similarities or differences among participants in more detail. Moreover, further studies comparing student teachers’ anxieties in distance and face-to-face education could be very valuable to see how the implementation of teaching in different settings could increase or decrease practice teaching anxiety. 7. 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