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Alleviating Oral Communication Anxieties In College French Classes: The Impact Of Professor-Student Connections, Claude Cassagne

Doctorate in Education

Oral communication anxiety (OCA) is a challenge for many college students studying a foreign language. This phenomenon has yielded many studies explaining OCA exists, relating it to personality traits and concluding educators play a large role in either reducing or aggravating such anxieties. However, research is lacking in the role professor-student rapport and connections play in affecting OCA. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative study was to seek student perception on (through their worldviews), and recommendations for, professor teaching practices as it relates to anxiety and rapport-building. The participants are and were students of French in an undergraduate private liberal …