Foreign Language Anxiety in Multilingual Students Before and After Corona-Lockdown: A Comparative Analysis

The study is devoted to linguistic anxiety of multilingual students in the conditions of adaptation to foreign-language educational environment. The work was carried out in two stages covering the period of study before COVID and after COVID. The main goal was to reveal structural and contents differences of the phenomenon of linguistic anxiety depending on changes in educational conditions and general psychological atmosphere in Lockdown conditions. A total of 120 foreign students studying humanities were interviewed. A comparative analysis of the data obtained showed that the samples did not differ significantly in terms of the overall index of linguistic anxiety and resilience. However, there were differences in the basic constructs. Thus, bilingual students before Corona-Lockdown had the highest test anxiety score. Anxiety about communication apprehension was lower. The situation changed after Corona-Lockdown. Multilingual respondents revealed the maximum anxiety concerning live communication and the minimum concerning testing. Foreign language anxiety and resilience appeared to correlate. Factor analysis of the data for both samples revealed differences in the number of components and their compounds. In the first sample, the components with a communicative orientation prevailed, while in the second sample, the components with an evaluation-test orientation dominated. The study showed the variability of the components that make up the basic subconstructs of linguistic anxiety. The influence of individual cognitive characteristics and styles on linguistic anxiety was suggested. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Psychosocial profiles of university students' emotional adjustment, perceived social support, self-efficacy belief, and foreign language anxiety during COVID-19

Objective: The aim of the study was to understand Chinese university students' psychological development during the COVID-19 outbreak. Method: Four online surveys, i.e., emotional adjustment, perceived social support, self-efficacy belief, and anxiety in English learning, were administered to 585 university students in China. The data were analyzed through a latent profile analysis. Results: Three profiles were identified: high adaptation, moderate adaptation, and low adaptation. The students with high adaptation (n = 276, 47.1%) possessed a more positive self-efficacy belief and demonstrated lower levels of anxiety. In contrast, the students with low adaptation (n = 82, 14%) possessed a less positive self-efficacy belief and demonstrated higher levels of anxiety. Conclusion: The findings highlight the need of psychological interventions to support the psychological development of vulnerable groups of learners within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. KEY POINTS: What is already known about this topic: (1) Anxiety is an important factor that influences the learning of foreign languages. (2) Self-efficacy and perceived social support help students cope with stress. (3) Emotional adjustment helps to reduce foreign language anxiety. What this paper adds: (1) Students with low adaptation possessed lower levels of self-efficacy belief and demonstrated higher levels of anxiety. (2) Teachers need to pay special attention to the psychological development of vulnerable groups of learners within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. (3) Teachers are advised to develop interventions that enhance students' self-efficacy beliefs and offer tailored interventions on emotional adjustment strategies. © 2021 Australian Psychological Society.

Foreign language anxiety of an Ecuadorian polytechnic university's English undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This research aimed to identify the levels of stress students experience, the different sources that generate them and the relationship between the stress levels and the students' gender. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods design was used, focusing on the quantitative stage. The qualitative section was designed to obtain supporting information. 86 Ecuadorian undergraduate polytechnic students enrolled in an English course took part in this study. Quantitative data are obtained using the Telecollaborative Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (T-FLAS), while online interviews supply insight from students. Findings: The present research identified four types of anxiety related to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Communication anxiety is one of them that has also been found in regular foreign language classes (Horowitz et al., 1986). However, the actual contribution is regarding the other three sources of ERT-related anxiety: Online interaction anxiety, ERT anxiety and technology anxiety. Also, it was identified that girls experience higher anixety levels than men do. Research limitations/implications: A limitation of this study is the T-FLAS, a tool that has not been widely used. However, as Fondo and Jacobetty (2020) reported, other papers have made use of this novel tool. Another limitation to this research is the number of participants;although it is not very small, it might not be considered large enough for generalization purposes. Also, this study was limited by its scope, which only looked at the relationship between the students' genders and anxiety levels. Practical implications: First, this researcher recommends that language departments use the survey at the beginning of each semester. That way, there will be a clear idea of the sources of anxiety students are experiencing, and measures can be taken to lower those anxiety-causing factors. Also, this study shows students experiencing a high level of anxiety when they are required to interact with their peers using a foreign language. Thus, supplying practice through guided discussions and role-plays should allow learners to reduce their anxiety levels and perform better during these kinds of exchanges in the short term. Social implications: Another issue reported by this study is the feelings of uneasiness when turning cameras on to do an exercise or taking quizzes and exams, as learners feel like their classmates and teachers are invading their homes. It is recommended that the Student Welfare Department of the educational institutions deal with this and other issues. They can design intervention, relaxation and yoga programs for students who are feeling anxious to help them lower those feeling and allow them to have better interactions in class during these times of remote learning. Originality/value: This paper's originality lies in the fact that it looks at anxiety from the point of view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the move it had to be made to the digital realm. It identifies three factors that are new and related 100% to emergency remote teaching–learning. It is also valuable as it is looking at data emerging for a South American country, as data are scarce from this continent and especially from Ecuador. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Examining the key factors behind foreign language anxiety (FLA) in online teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Though foreign language anxiety (FLA) has long been recognized as an important affective factor in second language learning, its impact is worth studying in new educational contexts of emergency remote teaching in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The present study examines the key factors behind FLA in online teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The research was conducted among a sample of 171 first-year undergraduate university students of Economics & Business economics and Informatics at the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Croatia, during the winter semester of 2020/2021. The research instrument used was a 33-item questionnaire adapted from the FLCAS scale (Horwitz et al., 1986) to reflect the online ESP classroom environment. The main results indicate that various background factors, such as gender, self-assessed levels of proficiency, length of learning English and frequency of English language use, significantly influence the reported levels of language anxiety. Furthermore, the study establishes the underlying structure of FLA, with five factors positively correlated with overall language anxiety at the. 01 level of statistical significance: speech anxiety, evaluation and comprehension anxiety, online ESP classroom environment, anxiety of talking to native speakers, and lack of motivation for online class attendance. Finally, multiple regression analysis shows that the five aspects of FLA, alongside the variables of gender and self-assessed pronunciation proficiency, represent statistically significant predictors of the total level of FLA among online ESP learners. The other independent variables are confirmed to be unreliable in predicting the overall level of language anxiety in an online ESP classroom. © 2022 Maja Novak Ladarević, published by Sciendo.

Exploring the relationship between foreign language anxiety and students' online engagement at UK universities during the Covid-19 pandemic

Although foreign language anxiety (FLA) and student engagement have both been found to have significant effects on a number of behavioural and academic outcomes for language students (Awan et al. 2010, Gargalianou et al. 2016). FLA is poorly understood in university students studying English as a second language. However, limited research shows it is present (Haley et al. 2015). Additionally, the relationship between FLA and student engagement has seldom been explored. Therefore, the present exploratory study investigated the relationship between FLA and online learning in university students, particularly focusing on online learning as the new mode of instruction since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted to explore to what extent FLA is present among international students studying in L2 English at UK universities and whether FLA affects engagement with online learning. We tested 65 international students, studying at UK universities, using two newly developed scales for measuring FLA and student engagement with online learning. Participants completed an online questionnaire with background questions, the FLA scale, and the students' engagement scale. The results of our multiple linear regression analyses suggest that FLA has a significant negative influence on students' engagement with online learning.

The roles of motivation, anxiety and learning strategies in online Chinese learning among Thai learners of Chinese as a foreign language.

The impact of motivation, anxiety and learning strategies on the achievement of foreign language proficiency has been widely acknowledged in the context of traditional offline classroom settings. However, this issue has not been extensively documented in relation to online learning, which has become the predominant form of language learning during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study was conducted to investigate the relative prediction of motivation, anxiety and learning strategies for second language achievement among 90 Thai adult learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) who took online Chinese courses. The participants completed a questionnaire dealing with motivation, anxiety, learning strategies, and their Chinese proficiency was measured by self-report and a Chinese vocabulary size test. A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed two major findings. First, anxiety emerged as the most stable factor for the participants' CFL achievement, followed by learning strategies and motivation. Second, motivation, anxiety and learning strategies only significantly predicted the participants' self-rated Chinese language proficiency, but not their performance on the Chinese vocabulary size test. The overall results indicate the relative importance of motivation, anxiety and learning strategies to Chinese language learning in the online environment and suggest different measures of CFL achievement may lead to different research findings. The general findings were of theoretical and pedagogical significance for understanding and addressing individual differences factors in online language learning.

Can E-portfolios Reduce Foreign Language Anxiety in Online Speaking Courses during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

E-portfolios have been used successfully to boost the EFL students' speaking performance for over a decade. Nevertheless, e-portfolios have never been profoundly reported to reduce foreign language anxiety (henceforth, FLA), especially in an online speaking course during the COVID-19 pandemic requiring fully online forms. We, therefore, investigated (1) the effect of e-portfolios on students' FLA and (2) the difference in FLA between male and female students given e-portfolios. This study employed a mixed-methods experimental design involving an experiment followed by interviews. The participants comprised 120 English education majors at a state university in Indonesia who took an online speaking class due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They were divided into the experiment (60 students) and control (60 students) groups. We collected the data by distributing the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale through an online survey platform as the pretest and posttest. Ten willing students were invited for interviews after the experiment was over. The results indicated that students' FLA decreased significantly when they were using e-portfolios in their online speaking courses. Additionally, no significant difference in FLA was identified between male and female students in the experiment group. According to the interview findings, activities in e-portfolios gave an equal opportunity for male and female students to reduce their FLA. We also discuss four pedagogical implications for alleviating FLA in online speaking courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, CALL-EJ. All rights reserved.

The Role of Classroom Contexts on Learners' Grit and Foreign Language Anxiety: Online vs. Traditional Learning Environment.

This review aimed at exploring the related investigations on the effects of online and traditional learning contexts on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' grit and foreign language anxiety (FLA). Studies have verified the relationship between learners' grit and academic performance in online learning contexts. However, there is a need for studying the effect of face-to-face learning and face-to-screen learning on learners' grit. On the other hand, studies have shown that classroom context is a mediating variable in the relationship between grit and FLA. Furthermore, few studies have been done on the effect of traditional classroom contexts and online learning contexts on learners' FLA. Most studies showed that online learning contexts create more FLA. There are some reasons such as ambiguity of contexts, lack of feedback, lack of opportunities for communication, type of employed applications, cognitive load, technophobia, and reduction in enthusiasm which arouse learners' anxiety in an online learning environment. In the end, the pedagogical implications are expounded to promote the learners' grit and diminish anxiety for better performance. This review also provides some suggestions for further research to clarify our perspective on positive and negative emotional variables.

Foreign language anxiety of an Ecuadorian polytechnic university’s English undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: This research aimed to identify the levels of stress students experience, the different sources that generate them and the relationship between the stress levels and the students' gender. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods design was used, focusing on the quantitative stage. The qualitative section was designed to obtain supporting information. 86 Ecuadorian undergraduate polytechnic students enrolled in an English course took part in this study. Quantitative data are obtained using the Telecollaborative Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (T-FLAS), while online interviews supply insight from students. Findings: The present research identified four types of anxiety related to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Communication anxiety is one of them that has also been found in regular foreign language classes (Horowitz et al., 1986). However, the actual contribution is regarding the other three sources of ERT-related anxiety: Online interaction anxiety, ERT anxiety and technology anxiety. Also, it was identified that girls experience higher anixety levels than men do. Research limitations/implications: A limitation of this study is the T-FLAS, a tool that has not been widely used. However, as Fondo and Jacobetty (2020) reported, other papers have made use of this novel tool. Another limitation to this research is the number of participants;although it is not very small, it might not be considered large enough for generalization purposes. Also, this study was limited by its scope, which only looked at the relationship between the students' genders and anxiety levels. Practical implications: First, this researcher recommends that language departments use the survey at the beginning of each semester. That way, there will be a clear idea of the sources of anxiety students are experiencing, and measures can be taken to lower those anxiety-causing factors. Also, this study shows students experiencing a high level of anxiety when they are required to interact with their peers using a foreign language. Thus, supplying practice through guided discussions and role-plays should allow learners to reduce their anxiety levels and perform better during these kinds of exchanges in the short term. Social implications: Another issue reported by this study is the feelings of uneasiness when turning cameras on to do an exercise or taking quizzes and exams, as learners feel like their classmates and teachers are invading their homes. It is recommended that the Student Welfare Department of the educational institutions deal with this and other issues. They can design intervention, relaxation and yoga programs for students who are feeling anxious to help them lower those feeling and allow them to have better interactions in class during these times of remote learning. Originality/value: This paper's originality lies in the fact that it looks at anxiety from the point of view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the move it had to be made to the digital realm. It identifies three factors that are new and related 100% to emergency remote teaching–learning. It is also valuable as it is looking at data emerging for a South American country, as data are scarce from this continent and especially from Ecuador. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.