Students’ attitudes towards mindfulness as a stress reductor for reading anxiety in the EFL clas

Abstract

Starting from the main idea of the relationship between attention and learning, the main hypothesis for this work is developed around whether the practice of mindfulness can be beneficial in academic contexts to contribute to lower levels of foreign language classroom anxiety. Taking as reference the findings that link mindfulness practice with reducing students’ anxiety, research was planned to assess students’ opinions and attitudes about the benefits in the reading skills after a meditation and mindfulness’ program implementation period. The present study investigates the degree of students’ self-awareness and collects their attitudes in relation to mindfulness method activities implementation in English as a foreign language (EFL) class. Data were collected in a primary learning environment where results obtained from three questionnaires to the experimental group participants (14) were compared. As a result, general attitudes to mindfulness implementation were positive and the degree of mindful experience seemed to increase post-intervention. Furthermore, experimental participants gave positive opinions towards meditation and mindful teaching in their open-ended responses to their experience.