Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, sa.36, ss.1-26, 2025 (SSCI)
Proficiency in English is a critical requisite for gastronomy and culinary arts students and professionals
seeking to excel in their profession. However, learners frequently encounter challenges
such as anxiety, limited self-confidence, insufficient topic knowledge, fear of making errors, and
concerns over peer judgment. Therefore, a mixed-methods study was conducted among 111
students enrolled in a gastronomy program at a Turkish state university during the 2023–2024
academic year, adopting an action research methodology to investigate English-speaking anxiety
among this student cohort. A two-phase data collection approach was employed: first, a survey
was administered to quantify students’ anxiety levels while speaking English; subsequently, indepth
interviews were conducted to elicit reasons underlying their apprehensions. Following
this exploratory phase, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)-based activities were
designed and implemented to address the identified sources of anxiety, accompanied by reflection
reports collected from participants after each intervention. These reports, coupled with expert
feedback, informed revisions to the activities, allowing for a second measurement of anxiety
levels post-intervention. The findings indicated that gastronomy students experienced English
language anxiety stemming from perceived competence, fear of judgement, internalized psychological
constraints, limited contextual learning, pedagogical and evaluation-based reasons.
Notably, prospective female chefs exhibited higher anxiety levels compared to their male counterparts.
Furthermore, the results revealed a significant decrease in anxiety levels among participants
following the implementation of CLIL-based activities and tasks. These outcomes suggest
that a CLIL-integrated gastronomy English course may effectively mitigate learners’ anxiety
during the learning process.