The relationships between foreign language anxiety and English performances in Chinese undergraduate students.

Introduction: Foreign language anxiety is defined as a complex combination of self-perceptions, beliefs, and feelings of tension and apprehension uniquely associated with foreign language contexts (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994). For Chinese undergraduates learning English as a foreign language, those with a higher level of foreign language anxiety were found to have lower self-rated English skills (Liu & Jackson, 2008). While foreign language anxiety has been found to negatively correlate with language performance (e.g. Abu-Rabia, 2004; Elkhafaifi, 2005), its links with abilities in specific domains of foreign language learning remain unclear. This study therefore examined these specific relationships in Chinese students learning English as a foreign language. The gender difference in foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) was further discussed. Method: Thirty-five undergraduate students with a mean age of 21.6 completed the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (Saito, Garza, & Horwitz, 1999) and were tested individually on English vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and word reading skills in a psychology laboratory. Results: Results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that students’ FLRA level negatively predicted all measured English skills after controlling age and nonverbal IQ. Male students were found to have a significantly higher FLRA level than female students. Conclusion: This study has extended past research by showing the gender difference in FLRA and the relationships between FLRA and performances in various English domains in Chinese students. The findings suggest that foreign language anxiety is not domain specific and can exert effects on both reading skills and oral vocabulary knowledge. References: Abu-Rabia, S. (2004). Teachers’ role, learners’ gender differences, and FL anxiety among seventh-grade students studying English as a FL. Educational Psychology, 24(5), 711–720. Elkhafaifi, H. (2005). Listening comprehension and anxiety in the Arabic language classroom. Modern Language Journal, 89(2), 206–220. Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B., & Cope, J. A. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 125–132. Liu, M., & Jackson, J. (2008). An exploration of Chinese EFL learners’ unwillingness to communicate and foreign language anxiety. Modern Language Journal, 92(1), 71–86. MacIntyre, P. D., & Gardner, R. C. (1994). The subtle effects of language anxiety on cognitive processing in the second language. Language Learning, 44, 283–305. Saito, Y., Garza, T. J., & Horwitz, E. K. (1999). Foreign language reading anxiety. Modern Language Journal, 83(2), 202–218.