WRITING ANXIETY IN ENGLISH ACADEMIC WRITING: A CASE STUDY OF EFL STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVES

Reporting the EFL students' perspectives as their experience in perceiving writing anxiety in English academic writing is the aim of this current study. Designed in a case study, data was collected through a semi-structured interview. Five EFL students at a university in Central Java, Indonesia was recruited to participate in this study. Framed in a thematic analysis, the findings of the study demonstrate that their perspectives were investigated in five aspects: the way they perceive difficult patterns in English academic writing, writing under time and theme constraints, and the way they view and think about the contributions of evaluations and comments from their lecturers and classmates to their writing process and progress. The result of this study showed that the emotive dimension of insecurity was the most apparent in EFL students themselves during writing activities for their English academic writing. This empirical evidence contributes to educational policy balanced to the students' ability.


A. INTRODUCTION
riting is one of four integrated skills that have to be mastered by students, including undergraduates. As pointed out by Pineteh (2013), enhancing academic writing skills is needed by them because it is crucial in socializing them into the subjects' discourse and disciplines in university. In this term, academic writing is defined as the logical organization and arrangement of the written sentences within a paragraph or more, produced by the mental and cognitive activity of people (Al Badi, 2015), with complexity, formality, objectivity, hedging, preciosity, and language accuracy as its characteristics (Aunurrahaman, Hamied & Emilia, 2017). Qashoa (2014) reported that learners' language achievement is impacted by anxiety which is experienced by second/foreign language learners. Al Badi (2015) confirmed that academic writing has a fundamental impact on students' progress in a second language. Even so, EFL students commonly perceive that writing in a foreign language is a difficult task (Jawas, 2019). Therefore, as stated by Aripin and Rahmat (2019), English writing activities for non-English native learners become a challenge in their writing process, even becoming the most challenging skill (Fareed, Ashraf & Bilal, 2016). It is because students face issues that generally arise from incompetence in syntax, coherence, organizing ideas, content selection, topic sentences, lack of vocabulary, and inappropriate vocabulary use, rhetorical conventions, mechanics, and organization (Fareed, Ashraf & Bilal, 2016). There are also several stages to W produce a good written text, like note-taking, identifying the main idea, outlining, drafting, and revising, that students have to follow. It makes writing seem like a very complicated skill (Rehelmi, 2020), and it becomes a challenging skill for them (Aripin & Rahmat, 2019).
Writing anxiety is a negative feeling of anxiety which prevents students from continuing to write in a second language (Rudiyanto, 2017). Jawas (2019) defines writing anxiety as a feeling of apprehension and pessimism about writing, which can be seen in students' behavior, attitudes, and written work when they are asked to write. There are three types of writing anxiety. They are somatic, cognitive, and avoidance behaviors (Cheng, 2004). This anxious feeling is claimed to obstruct students' writing activities, including their process and achievement (Rehelmi, 2020;Jawas, 2019;Qashoa, 2014). Many factors can contribute to this feeling, such as classmates, linguistic knowledge, teachers' attitudes toward students, and time pressure on a writing activity (Ratnasari, 2020).
Based on Qashoa (2014), writing anxiety is possible to influence EFL students' writing performance and attitudes, especially undergraduate students. Ratnasari (2020) reported that lack of ability to generate ideas in appropriate English writing mostly causes students' English writing anxiety. According to Rudiyanto (2017), writing anxiety has a positive effect on students' writing performance. The other researchers have the opposite argument for the cause of writing anxiety (Soleimani, Hamasaid & Saheb, 2020). It indicates that there are different arguments about writing anxiety.
It is common and prevalent to discuss the case of students' writing anxiety and the strategies to deal with it, but the research that discusses it relating to the students' own perspective is limited. Actually, students' perspectives are also important to be explored and discussed so that teachers can solve students' problems (Sather, 2004). As explained by Sather (2004), teachers need to embrace authorizing students' perspectives because students have knowledge essential to the development of educational policies and practices. Thus, it is important to involve EFL students' own perspective on writing anxiety they have experienced in academic writing in order to reduce this anxiety.
From the evidences mentioned before, it can be pointed that reports of writing anxiety toward English academic writing following to the EFL students' perspectives is still limited, especially for Indonesian students as English foreign learners. For this reason, this study was initiated by the researchers to fill this gap. It focuses on the revealing students' perspectives on writing anxiety toward their English academic writing. The result of this study considers to the English teachers in determining the learning approaches in teaching English writing since students as one of essential roles to development of educational policies and practices.

Writing Anxiety
Writing anxiety is defined as the psychological condition experienced by students where they are afraid of the writing process using a foreign language (Soleimani, Hamasaid & Saheb, 2020). It can also be defined as the negative emotions and feelings such as anxiety, nervousness, low confidence (Nordin, et al., 2020), tension, apprehension, and worry (Rudiyanto, 2017) experienced by EFL learners in any writing activity (Nordin, et al., 2019). This anxious feeling is claimed to obstruct students' writing activities, including their process and achievement (Jawas, 2019;Qashoa, 2014;Rehelmi, 2020). Cheng (2004) divided writing anxiety into three types. They are somatic, cognitive, and avoidance behaviors (Cheng, 2004). Firstly, the somatic anxiety type is linked to psychological changes in a person associated with anxiety (Rudiyanto, 2017). In other studies, Ekmekçi (2018) cited that it deals with the psychological effects experienced by a person, reflected in increased autonomic arousal and unpleasant feelings such as nervousness and tension. Secondly, cognitive anxiety connects to the mental aspect when someone experiences anxiety such as negative expectations, preoccupation with performance, regards to other people's perceptions (Cheng, 2004;Ekmekçi, 2018;Rudiyanto, 2017) While the last type is explained as the behavioral aspect where a person avoids or refuses to write (Cheng, 2004;Ekmekçi, 2018).
As examined by Ratnasari (2020), there are many factors that can contribute to this feeling, such as classmates, linguistic knowledge, teachers' attitudes toward students, and time pressure on an activity of writing. Jawas (2019) has examined that creating ideas, developing statements of writing, developing content writing, types of essay assignments, and classroom atmosphere cause students' writing anxiety. In other studies, Aytaç-Demirçivi (2020) found that the writing self-efficacy of EFL students causes this feeling of anxiety.
Many researchers state that writing anxiety has effects on several aspects of human life and their performance in intelligent aspects (Soleimani et. al., 2020). One intelligent aspect that may be affected by this anxious feeling is writing skills. Thus, it contributes to the students' difficulties in mastering writing skills (Aunurrahman, Hamied & Emilia, 2017;Cheng, 2004;Qashoa, 2014;Rehelmi, 2020).

English Academic Writing
English academic writing is defined as the writing activity in an educational area using the English language. As cited by Aunurrahman, Hamied & Emilia (2107), it is defined as argumentative writing which has two functions; analytical function and hortatory function. Both functions are contrasted in the schematic structure of the genres (Aunurrahman, Hamied, & Emilia, 2017). Notes, reports, projects, essays, and dissertations/theses are common types of academic writing (Bailey, 2011).
In English academic writing, students as writers can express their ideas, opinions, realities, and points of view (Husna, 2020) with evidence from several sources (Bailey, 2003). As scientific writing, it must present a balanced discussion of a range of views, avoiding value judgments about what is true or false related to moral beliefs and avoiding the use of personal pronouns (Harley, 2008). It is because the purpose of it is to report a piece of research conducted by the writer, to answer a question the writer has been given or chosen, to discuss a common interest subject and give the writer's view and perspectives (Bailey, 2011). Bailey (2011) also explained that the other purpose of it is to synthesize research done by others on a topic.
According to Kalandadze (2007), the stages in the process are prewriting, drafting, and revising (Kalandadze, 2007). In other studies, Gibriel (2019) cited that the stages of this activity are pre-writing, while-writing, and post-writing, with different methods for each of them.
Students need to brainstorm the ideas in the first stages and start writing in the second stages.
In the last stage, students need to revise and edit their writing product (Gibriel, 2009). In other discussion, to make a good written-text, Aripin & Rahmat (2019) confirmed that there is a direct relationship between verbal and non-verbal communication in a writing process. As explained by Bailey (2011), a short essay consists of three features; introduction, main body, and introduction, while reports, case studies, literature reviews, and other dissertation types and journal articles consist of an abstract, list of contents, list of tables, introduction, main body, conclusion, acknowledgements, references, and appendices.
Hence, many researchers found that there are several problems with EFL students' writing.
For example, in the aspect of English academic writing structures and content, Singh (2015) found that the most difficult aspects of academic writing in the English language for EFL undergraduate students were literature review, methodology, and findings/analysis sections with appropriate academic style, writing coherent paragraphs, and expressing ideas in correct English. Students also faced problems with writing abstracts, paraphrasing, planning writing assignments, and synthesizing information or ideas (Shingh, 2015). Consequently, students' writing performance and achievement were impaired (Gibriel, 2019;Soleimani et al., 2020).
Regarding the phenomenon of writing anxiety, several researchers agreed that writing anxiety may possibly cause students' writing performance. Cheng (1999) found that a significant factor in English writing classes was students' fear of evaluation. In addition, committing mistakes in language structures such as grammar and vocabulary were the students' biggest fear which caused English writing anxiety (Shang, 2012).

Students' Perspective
Students' perspective is defined as students' view and thoughts on what happens in schools and classrooms (Sather, 2004). Oldfather (1995) stated that students' voices have become an important and crucial thing that teachers should do because they are principal stakeholders in education. It has been agreed by Rowman and Littlefield (2001), who claim that educators need to attend to the perspectives of students who are the most directly affected by schooling but least often consulted about its efficacy.
Nieto (2004) stated that although students are recipients of schooling, their views and opinions need to be listened to by educational actors because they are people who will be affected by school policies and practices. It is important to consider students' views in transforming curriculum and pedagogy and for educational reform (Nieto, 2004). Therefore, if teachers want to make their EFL students succeed in writing lessons, it is also important to listen to students' perspectives about their writing experiences to reduce and avoid writing anxiety that may be experienced by them.
Sather (2004) defines student perspectives as students' views and thoughts on what happens in school and classrooms. Therefore, appraisal theory has a crucial space in it because appraisal evaluates the events that people face as having personal meaning or relevance (Martin & White, 2005). According to Silvia (2005), in order to make a prediction about the epistemological emotions that people feel when facing an event, i.e., wonder and awe, anxiety, shame, confusion, disgust, and anger, it is necessary to make an appraisal model. Martin & White (2005) explained that appraisal theory can be used to analyze language people use.
As a part of attitude which reflects on people's expression of the situation they face (Panggabean & Lestari, 2017), affects concerns about their personal emotional reactions, i.e., horror, worry, anger (Martin & White, 2005), happiness, joy, gloomy, and misery (Whitelaw, Garg & Argamon, 2005). Martin & White (2005) cited that there are four parameters of affect that can be used to analyze the participants' language evaluation about their personal emotions and feelings. They are dis/inclination, in/security, dis/satisfaction and un/happiness (Martin & White, 2005).

Research Design
This current study applied case study research. It was employed to understand deeply about the case happened on each participant by interviewing them about appearance of writing anxiety on them from smaller cases by combining information. The researcher organized semistructured interviews with five EFL students at English Education Department of a university in Central Java, Indonesia. Each participant was interviewed 30-60 minutes using WhatsApp (Gibson, 2020) for five days. By this interviewing, they are expected to feel free to answer the questions without feeling constrained as claimed by Creswell (2012) that there is no feeling constrained on the participants to respond the questions by employing this semi-structured interviewed.

Respondents
Five university students of 20-24 years old in one of public Islamic universities in Pekalongan, Central Java, Indonesia participated in this study. They were eight semester students of English Education Department.

Instruments
The participants were interviewed for each of them in 30-60 minutes to investigate their perspectives on writing anxiety in English academic writing especially in their own thesis. As the research participants, their personal information is confidential (Widodo, 2014).

Procedures
This interview was conducted in five days. Each of participants was interviewed in a day for 30-60 minutes via WhatsApp (Gibson, 2020).

Data Analysis
To analyze the data, thematic analysis suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006) was employed by the researcher. This study focused on writing anxiety theory introduced by Cheng (2004). It is limited on the students' perspectives regarding to the affect as a part of appraisal theory introduced by Martin & White (2005).

Perceiving Difficult Feature of an English Academic Writing
The aim of this study was to report the EFL students' writing anxiety in English academic writing relating to their own perspectives. Guided by Cheng's (2004) theory collaborated with Martin & White (2005) this study investigated several aspects related to the writing anxiety through appraisal theory. This study focused on four parameters of affect as a part of attitude in appraisal taxonomy. For this reason, the researcher made an interview in depth to each participant to get obtain data.
Drawing on the thematic content and four parameters of affect analyses of the interview data, five central findings themes were identified. These themes reflect to the research question presented earlier while the questions of the interview related to the writing anxiety theories, including its contributing factors. The first theme is about how EFL students perceive the difficult feature of an English academic writing.
Concerning with this, a participant told that he was very confused during the activity of writing the main body. It is a part of academic writing patterns which involves literature review, case study, findings and discussion (Bailey, 2011). He told that the main body was the most difficult pattern in English academic writing. It is linear with Singh (2015)  In the last sentence the participant showed that he was not satisfied at the writing main body. This sentence is classified into insecurity as a parameter of affect (Martin & White, 2005).  (2004), somatic anxiety linked psychological changes in a person associated with anxiety. In other discussion, this sentence showed that writing main body took him to insecurity. It is signed by the word ''confused'' (Martin & White, 2005).
However, two participants considered that introduction was the most difficult structure to write. In this context, Daisy said ''Introduction is the most difficult, I think. I feel dizzy and sometimes stress (insecurity). I think it is because of lack of knowledge (inclination).'' There were two feelings indicated that Daisy was anxious during writing introduction pattern. Those two were feeling dizzy and stress.
Regarding to Singh (2015), the most difficulty in academic writing in English language for EFL undergraduate students were literature review, methodology and findings/analysis sections. This empirical data showed that introduction as the most difficult pattern for the participant to write in thesis writing made him dizzy. Sometimes she also stressed because of it.
Therefore it is contrasted to Sigh (2015). Meanwhile, the participant was not safe with this negative emotion appeared during this activity. It can be found in the phrase ''dizzy and sometimes stress.'' According to Martin & White (2005), it is categorized into affect as a parameter of attitude which shows the some one's feeling during she experienced it.
In the student vignette 3, it was also stated that lack of knowledge caused participant got negative emotions. It indicates that Daisy experienced writing anxiety especially somatic anxiety (Cheng, 2004). It is also linear with Ratnasari (2020). Despite, Daisy was aware of her lack that caused her writing anxiety. The statement of the difficulty of writing introduction was stated by

Mawar. She said, ''Introduction is the most difficult.''
Those data indicate that there are different perspectives students had about the structure of an English academic writing. The three of them stated that the most difficult structure of an English academic writing was main body while the two other claimed that introduction was the most difficult one.

Writing under Theme Constraint
The other cause of writing anxiety is writing under theme constraint. In this condition, four participants told the researcher that they felt more difficult. Based on Cheng (2004), it is categorized into somatic anxiety. This anxiety concerns to the psychological effects experienced by a person reflected in increasing autonomic arousal and unpleasant feelings such as nervousness and tension (Cheng, 2004).

Regarding to this, Mawar said, ''Yaahh (insecurity). I feel it is more difficult because we have to find out the material about the theme first.'' Mawar started his sentences with interjection ''yaahh''.
This interjection concerned with affect (Martin & White, 2005 Sakura's sentences showed that she was dissatisfied at this condition. Even, she felt afraid at paraphrasing when she asked to write an English academic writing with determined theme. It indicates that she experienced cognitive anxiety. It can be seen in the phrase ''afraid at paraphrasing''. As explained by Cheng (2004), Sakura's feeling is categorized into somatic anxiety.
Thus, she experienced two writing anxiety types. The emotional reaction showed by Sakura was fear of paraphrasing. According to Roseman, Antoniou & Jose (1996), fear of something is a negative emotion.
There is also a phrase indicates that she wanted to report something she experienced excluding negative feeling of fear of paraphrasing. It can be seen in ''I do not understand when my lecturer gives me some suggestions''. In this sentence, the participant wanted to give an overview about his situation and condition during the process of writing her thesis with her lecturer. She used engagement to reflect what the situation are (Oskoz & Sanz, 2019). It is because although she was not asked by the researcher about her experience with her lecturer, she was still reported it.
In other word, she wanted to get empathy from others. In this context, the sentence ''I do not understand when my lecturer gives me some suggestions'' does not literal meaning. This was evidenced by the existence of the psycholinguistic evidence supporting the presumed role as explained by Holtgraves (2013).
In other interview, Shisui told that she was fear when she has to write an English academic writing under theme constraint. Since the interview, Shisui said, ''Of course, I am anxious, afraid'' (insecurity). Her sentence indicated that she was fear to write an English academic writing under theme constraint. This anxiety was called somatic anxiety (Cheng, 2004

Writing under Time Constraint
The other cause of writing anxiety is writing under time constraint. Based on Cheng (2004), it is categorized into somatic anxiety. This anxiety concerns to the psychological effects experienced by a person reflected in increasing autonomic arousal and unpleasant feelings such as nervousness and tension (Cheng, 2004). In this context, all participants told to the researcher that they had negative emotion such as nervousness and afraid. It can be seen in the data: In line with this, Shisui said, ''I'm nervous (insecurity) when I am writing under time constraint, afraid (insecurity) if I cannot finish it (dissatisfaction).'' His sentence showed that she was anxious of writing in limited time. According to Cheng (2004), this anxious is categorized into somatic anxiety. Moreover, Shisui told that she was nervous when she asked to write in limited time. This condition caused him to fall in insecurity. This statement revealed that writing activity under time constraint led Shisui's anxiety. It is signed by the words ''nervous'' and ''afraid.'' It indicates that she felt that she was not safe. Therefore, based on Shisui's statement, it can be concluded that she experienced somatic anxiety (Cheng, 2004).
The last Shisui's phrase ''if I cannot finish it'' is presented that she was unsatisfied. Her anxiety influenced her mind-set so that she imagined how if she cannot finish her work. In addition, based on Cheng (2004) who examined that mental aspect when someone experiences anxiety such as negative expectations, preoccupation with performance, regards to other people's perceptions regarded to the cognitive anxiety, Shisui's sentence indicates that she had a cognitive anxiety. Additionally, writing under time constraint has been examined by Ratnasari (2020) that it contributes to students' writing anxiety.
Despite, Shisui still continue her work. Even she would to ask time addition to the lecturer.  Ekmekçi (2018) and examined by Ratnasari (2020), lack of adequate knowledge causes on students' writing anxiety. Shang (2012) revealed that when students commit several mistakes in language structures such as grammar and vocabulary were students fear causes students' writing anxiety.

Evaluations and Comments from the Lecturer
Lecturer's evaluations and comments may cause students writing anxiety (Rehelmi, 2019).
It is linear with Cheng (2004). In this current study, all of participants told to the researcher that they did not fear of lecturer's evaluations and comments. It can be seen in data:

Student Vignette 4
It does not make me write reluctantly (happiness Those sentences indicate that students will be motivated when the lecturer gives a good response and feedback and motivation. It is good for the lecturers to take it as regulation. As pointed out by Jawas (2019), Ratnasari (2020), Rehelmi (2019) and Rudiyanto (2017) that teachers' attitude towards students significantly effects on students writing performance and achievement because it contributes to their writing anxiety.

Evaluations and Comments from Classmates
The other evaluations come from classmate. In this context, the data interview showed that there was no one participant who took it as the problem. They allow their classmate to comment and evaluate their writing. However, they did not like if the evaluation involved bullying.
The empirical evidence of this theme can be viewed in the data from Sakura's statement.
She said, ''Usually in the first I feel inferior (insecurity) when my friends evaluate and comment my writing.
But it's ok. It makes me know where my writing error is (satisfaction).'' It revealed that Sakura's sentence was negative feeling (Munday, 2015). According to Martin & White (2005), negative feeling like inferior which appeared on Sakura's sentence is a part of affect. It involves speaker's emotion where she was insecure by the comments and evaluations come from his classmates.
However, although Sakura felt inferior when her writing was evaluated and commented by her friends, she did not mind it. She still allowed her friends to evaluate and give comments for her writing. Even, she was satisfied with this because she would know where the writing errors are.
By this way, Sakura can reform her writing correctly.
The other answer came from Suna. It can be seen in Suna's statement. Suna said, ''If the comments are constructive, I will consider them (satisfaction). But, if the comment has a bad tone, I will choose to ignore it.'' In this context, any classmate comments might not influenced on Suna's writing. He only took the constructive comment and ignored the other comment. In appraisal context, Suna's sentence showed that he appreciated to his classmate when they give a good comment to him. Moreover, Suna was satisfied with his classmates' comments and evaluations.
He did not think it as a problem. It is signed by the word ''I will consider them'' which has positive connotation. It reflected on how Suna viewed the situation he faced. As Martin & White (2005) it involves semiotic evaluations and natural phenomena related to the ways in which people are valued or not in a given field. Therefore, in this context those data showed that participants did not experience any writing anxiety of evaluations and comments from classmates.

E. CONCLUSION
This study has revealed that each EFL student has their own perspectives on writing anxiety toward English academic writing. Emotive dimension of insecurity was the one that appeared the most. There are 11 sentences stated by the participants indicates they felt insecurity. The next number is dissatisfaction with 4 statements, 3 statements for each inclination and satisfaction and 2 statements for happiness.
Besides, as a factor of apparent of writing anxiety, main body was claimed by three participants as the most difficult pattern of an English academic writing while the two other claimed that introduction was the most difficult one. Then, four of them agreed that writing under time and theme constraints can make them became anxious to write. However they were aware to continue their writing because it is their duty as students. Next, they were satisfied about evaluations and comments from lecturers and classmates since it is a developing comment. It made them motivated to write that writing assignment, including thesis writing.
In line with the results of this current study, there should be a good communication between lecturers and the students concerns to what students view and think about writing activity in order to reduce this anxiety. This study provides an overview that every student has different perspective about writing anxiety toward their English academic writing. By knowing and understanding their problem in writing activity, especially thesis writing, lecturer can give appropriate treatment for the students in learning of English writing. On the contrary, this study only involved eight semester students as the research participants. Therefore, it is suggested for further study to involve new-college EFL students as the research participants in order to get other consideration in determining educational policy in English learning.