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This descriptive research investigated the level of English writing anxiety experienced by Indonesian EFL students. The respondents were 38 undergraduate students of English Literature program of a university in Semarang Central Java, Indonesia taking Essay Writing course which adopted portfolios as the assessment method. Data were collected by two closed questionnaires, the one was for collecting data of English writing anxiety and the second was for collecting data of writing problems faced by students which may trigger the anxiety arousal. The results show that the students experienced a high level of English writing anxiety and cognitive anxiety was the students suffered most. Gender doesn-t affect the level of anxiety experienced by the students; neither does the perception of writing difficulties. Grammar problem becomes the most mentioned-cause of anxiety followed by vocabulary problem and insufficient writing practice. To reduce the anxiety, therefore, it is recommended that writing teachers sufficiently address the issue of grammar and vocabulary as well as provides students with a lot of more writing practices.