Correlates of Anxiety at Three Stages of the Foreign Language Learning Process

Abstract

Foreign language anxiety is a complex phenomenon that occurs at each stage of the language learning process (i.e., input, processing, and output). This study of 205 university students attempted to identify a combination of variables that might be correlated with these three types of anxiety. Canonical correlation analyses revealed that students with the highest levels of anxiety at the input, processing, and output stages tend to be older; have lower expectations of their achievement in foreign language courses, low perceived global self-worth, low perceived scholastic competence, low perceived intellectual ability, and low perceived job competence; and have taken few or no high school foreign language courses. Academic achievement acted as a suppressor in the model by increasing the predictive power of the independent variables. The educational implications of these findings for understanding foreign language anxiety and for increasing foreign language learning are discussed, as are suggestions for future research.