An Exploration of Foreign Language Anxiety and English Learning Motivation

By Meihua Liu, Wenhong Huang. 2011

303 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Perceived to be two important affective variables, anxiety and motivation have been found to be highly correlated to second/foreign language acquisition. In order to examine the relationship between foreign language anxiety, English learning motivation, and performance in English, the present study investigated 980 undergraduate students from three universities in China who answered a 76-item survey. Analyses of the data revealed that (1) the respondents generally did not feel anxious in English and were moderately motivated to learn English, (2) foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation were significantly negatively correlated with each other, and (3) both foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation were significantly correlated with students' performance in English. Among the scales, foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCAS), intrinsic motivation (IntrinM), instrumental motivation (InstruM), fear of being negatively evaluated (FLCAS1), and interest in foreign languages and cultures (IFLC) proved to be powerful predictors for the latter.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Language and Linguistics, Literature and Literary Theory

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bf01068dc420618ef14f3eec85fab9c825ad4557

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. Jean–Marc Dewaele
2. Ibrahim Oteir
3. Samuel Greiff
4. A. Al-Otaibi
5. Wei Wang
6. Nurdan Gürbüz
7. E. Botes
8. Gökhan Öztürk

In Language and Linguistics

1. Samuel Greiff
2. E. Botes
3. Jean–Marc Dewaele
4. Ibrahim Oteir
5. A. Al-Otaibi
6. Fakieh Alrabai
7. Wei Wang
8. Nurdan Gürbüz

In Literature and Literary Theory

1. Samuel Greiff
2. E. Botes
3. Jean–Marc Dewaele
4. Ibrahim Oteir
5. A. Al-Otaibi
6. Fakieh Alrabai
7. Wei Wang
8. Nurdan Gürbüz

Citations in the corpus

• The Relationship between English Language Learner Characteristics and Online Self-regulation: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach (2020, background): “In contrast, students with lower anxiety normally possess positive learning attitudes, greater self-efficacy and expectations, and a higher perceived value of English [80,81].”
• Foreign Language Anxiety: A Systematic Review (2019, background): “Liu and Huang (2011) state that anxiety is negatively associated with students’ English learning motivation.”
• The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale and Academic Achievement: An Overview of the Prevailing Literature and a Meta-analysis (2020, methodology): “The FLCAS has been adapted or shortened in several studies (see Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014; Liu & Huang, 2011) and translated into numerous languages, including Hungarian (Tóth, 2008), Persian (Alidoost et al., 2013), Arabic (Dewaele & Al-Saraj, 2015) and Thai (Tanielian, 2014).”
• Speaking anxiety among Turkish EFL learners: The case at a state university (2014, background): “In his study, Price (1991) found that speaking in front of their peers is a very anxiety provoking activity for the foreign language learners because the learners were concerned about making mistakes in pronunciation and being laughed at.”
• The influence of teachers' anxiety-reducing strategies on learners' foreign language anxiety (2015, background): “Numerous studies’ findings have revealed that more anxious students tend to be less motivated to learn English (see, for example, Alrabai 2011; Clément, Dörnyei, and Noels 1994; Ehrman and Oxford 1995; Hao, Liu, and Hao 2004; Liu and Huang 2011).”