Abstract:
Foreign language anxiety (FLA) has long been a pervasive issue among second language learners even till now. There has been a considerable body of literature on foreign language anxiety since later years in the last century, and some research on context comparisons as well. Previous studies have found that language anxiety interacts with many learner variables such as gender, language achievements, overseas experience, self-confidence, motivation, beliefs, and willingness to communicate (WTC) and so on. For Chinese learners learning English as a foreign language (EFL), the construct is more prominent due to the Confucian heritage culture’s (CHCs) influence. Aiming to understand the effect of contextual factor on FLA in language learning, this study launched an exploration comparing foreign language anxiety among current Chinese EFL students between China and New Zealand universities. A mixed methods research design was adopted in this study. A questionnaire comprising the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; Park, 2014) and an additional enquiry for primary sources of anxiety was administered respectively to the samples of China (N=178) and New Zealand (N=88) contexts. The results showed that over half of participants in both contexts had varying degrees of language anxiety, but with distinct anxiety structures. The two groups of students differed significantly from each other in seven items. Students from both samples reported English listening and speaking, vocabulary, and low confidence as the key sources of their English anxiety, but they differed in various aspects subject to the major categories included. Generally speaking, language learning context did play a role in producing FLA of Chinese EFL learners. It was also found that regardless of learning context, language anxiety interfered with students’ self-confidence in English proficiency. Implications for alleviating FLA as well as recommendations on future research were introduced.
