HAN LUO

Northwestern University

In the past three decades, the study of foreign language anxiety has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers and language teachers. Studies in a variety of language learning contexts have found that approximately one-third of students studying a foreign language experience at least a moderate level of foreign language anxiety. Research has also reported various types of negative effects of foreign language anxiety on foreign language learning. Since foreign language anxiety is not only prevalent among language learners, but appears to interfere with language learning, it must be taken seriously in all types of language instruction. Most language teachers are interested in the causes of foreign language anxiety so that they can create more comfortable language learning environments. Although sources of foreign language anxiety have been identified here and there across the literature, there has not been a systematic and comprehensive report of all the sources. This paper attempts to propose a four-dimension source model of foreign language anxiety based on a thorough literature review and the researcher’s own insights.

INTRODUCTION

The literature on anxiety generally distinguishes three types of anxiety: trait, situation-specific, and state anxiety (see Cattell and Scheier 1963; MacIntyre and Gardner 1989, 1991a; Spielberger 1966). Trait anxiety refers to a general tendency to become nervous in a wide range of situations (Spielberger 1983). Since trait anxiety is a feature of an individual’s personality, it is therefore stable over time. In other words, people with trait anxiety are anxious about many things under many circumstances. State anxiety is the feeling of worry or stress that takes place at a particular moment under a particular circumstance (Spielberger 1983) and often accompanies physical signs such as perspiration, sweaty palms, dry mouth, muscle contractions and tension, and increased heart rate. A state anxiety is not stable and is likely to change from moment to moment and from circumstance to circumstance. A situation-specific anxiety is similar to trait anxiety in that it is stable over time, but it may not be consistent across situations. Rather, it is subject to change from situation to situation. Public speaking anxiety is an example of situation-specific anxiety.

Early studies on anxiety and language learning conceptualized foreign language anxiety as a transfer of other types of anxiety (i.e. trait anxiety, test anxiety, or public speaking anxiety) in the language learning context, which produced mixed and even contradictory results. At the time, some studies found negative relationships between anxiety and language achievement, some studies found no relationship, but others found positive relationships (Chastain 1975; Kleinmann 1977). Scovel (1978) argued that the inconsistent results of the early studies may be due to the fact that researchers used various constructs and measures of anxiety. Since that time, some researchers (e.g. Gardner 1985; Horwitzetal. 1986) suggested that foreign language anxiety should be viewed as a situation-specific anxiety unique to foreign language learning independent of other types of anxieties.

Gardner (1985: 34) hypothesized that “a construct of anxiety which is not general but instead is specific to the language acquisition context is related to second language achievement”. MacIntyre and Gardner (1994: 284) defined foreign language anxiety as “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening and learning”. MacIntyre (1999: 27) stated that “we can define language anxiety as the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a second language”.

Similarly, Horwitzetal. (1986: 128) held that foreign language anxiety is not simply transferred from other types of anxieties such as trait anxiety, but rather “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process”. They identified three anxieties related to foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension (McCroskey 1970), fear of negative evaluation (Watson and Friend 1969), and test anxiety (Sarason 1978), which were found to correlate with foreign language anxiety only slightly or moderately (Horwitz 1986). These findings indicate that although foreign language anxiety may share some variance with several other types of anxieties, it is clearly distinguishable from these anxieties. Therefore, foreign language anxiety should be considered as a construct important to foreign language learning in and of itself.

In order to measure the situation-specific anxiety for language learning, a number of specific instruments of second/foreign language anxiety were developed, among which the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) developed by Horwitzetal. (1986) has been used the most widely in the field of foreign language education. The FLCAS includes 33 Likert-scale items that assess a learner’s level of foreign language anxiety, as evidenced by subjective feelings, perceptions, negative attitudes towards foreign language classes, and avoidance behaviors (Horwitz 1986).

Since the introduction of measures specific to foreign language anxiety, researchers have used them to measure foreign language anxiety in a number of instructional contexts with varying target languages. Results have shown that foreign language anxiety is a common emotional reaction to foreign language learning experienced by foreign language learners whether it is in high schools, small colleges or large major universities, whether the target language is English, Spanish, French, Japanese or any other languages, whether language learners are freshmen or graduate students (e.g. Horwitz 1986; Aida 1994; MacIntyre and Gardner 1989; Ganschow and Sparks 1996). Studies have also found that learners of all proficiency levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) experience foreign language anxiety to certain degrees (e.g. Coulombe 2000; Liu 2006). Studies in a variety of language learning contexts have reported that approximately one-third of students studying a foreign language experience at least a moderate level of foreign language anxiety (Horwitz 2001). The fact that approximately one out of every three students has some form of language anxiety must be taken seriously in all types of language instruction.

Foreign language anxiety is not only prevalent among learners, but also has various negative effects on second/foreign language learning (see MacIntyre 1999; Horwitzetal. 2009). A good deal of research has suggested that anxiety causes cognitive interference in performing specific tasks (see Sarason 1980; Schwarzer 1986). Eysenck (1979) suggested that anxious people tended to have their attention divided between task-related cognition and self-related cognition. In the foreign language learning context, self-related cognition or anxiety-related thoughts have to compete for cognitive resources for language processing and production, which, therefore, usually hinders foreign language performance. Also, a large number of studies have investigated the relationship between foreign language anxiety and second language achievement. These studies generally report a consistent moderate negative relationship between measures of language anxiety and language achievement (Horwitz 2001). For example, Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) found language anxiety to be the largest single correlate of foreign language achievement. Studies have also shown that foreign language anxiety is likely to have a negative impact on students’ attitudes and motivation toward language study (e.g. Phillips 1990; Spitalli 2000). Baileyetal. (2003) have found that highly anxious learners are more at risk for dropping out of their foreign language classes. Research has also reported that anxious learners do not communicate as often as more relaxed learners (MacIntyre and Gardner 1991a, 1991b), which is obviously troublesome for foreign language learning.

Due to its prevalence among foreign language learners and its various negative effects on foreign language learning, most language teachers and researchers are interested in the causes or sources of foreign language anxiety so that they can help alleviate their students’ anxiety.

SOURCES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY

A large number of sources or causes of foreign language anxiety have been identified here and there in the literature. For example, Horwitzetal. (1986) considered foreign language anxiety as resulting from learners’ difficulties presenting themselves authentically in the new language. Sparks and Ganschow and their colleagues claimed poor language learning ability to be the only reason for foreign language anxiety (e.g. Sparks and Ganschow 1991, 1993a, 1993b). MacIntyre and Gardner (1993) proposed that language anxiety stemmed from repeated negative experiences associated with the foreign language. Young (1991) proposed six potential sources of language anxiety: (1) personal and interpersonal anxieties, (2) learner beliefs about language learning, (3) instructor beliefs about language teaching, (4) instructor-learner interactions, (5) classroom procedures, and (6) language testing. Young (1991, 1994, 1999) categorized sources of foreign language anxiety into those stemming from the learner, the teacher, and the instructional practice.

However, there has not been a systematic and comprehensive report of all the sources that have been identified and those potential sources that have not been documented. Based on a thorough literature review and the researcher’s own insights, the present study proposes that foreign language anxiety stems from four major sources, i.e. the classroom environment, learner characteristics, the target language, and the foreign language learning process itself.

Classroom environment

To a large degree, learners’ foreign language anxiety is associated with foreign language classrooms. The two major measures of foreign language anxiety, i.e. Gardner’s (1985) French Classroom Anxiety Scale and Horwitzetal.’s (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scales (FLCAS), are based on learners’ experience in the classroom setting.

It is self-evident that classroom environment can be a source of foreign language anxiety. The teacher and the instructional practices identified by Young (1991) can be subsumed under the classroom environment. In addition, the teacher, the behaviors of classmates and learner’s relationship with classmates can also be contributing factors to the classroom environment. Thus, the classroom environment, as a source of foreign language anxiety, consists of three perspectives, i.e. the role of the teacher, classroom practices, and relationships among the students in the classroom.

Theroleoftheteacher

The teacher has been found to play an important role in students’ anxiety levels in a foreign language class. For example, Allemand and Aida (1994) were particularly interested in the effect of the instructor on anxiety levels. In their study, one instructor was judged to be “authoritarian” whereas the other was viewed as “facilitative”. Students from the “authoritarian” teacher’s class commented on their experiences of high stress and anxiety; instead, students from the “facilitative” teacher’s class were reported to be more comfortable and less anxious.

Based on the results of interviews with anxious students, Price (1991: 106) also reported that the teacher “had played a significant role in the amount of anxiety each student had experienced in particular classes”. Price also pointed out that those teachers who criticized students’ accents or high school instructors who walked around the classroom with a yardstick and flung it on the desk of anyone who was not listening were thought to increase students’ anxiety. Those instructors who made class time a performance rather than a learning time were also reported to be anxiety-provoking. On the contrary, those teachers who encouraged mistakes in class and asked the students to discuss the importance of making mistakes in language learning were thought to alleviate anxiety.

Samimy (1994) considered a judgmental teaching attitude as anxiety-provoking. Aida (1994) saw a harsh manner of teaching as leading to anxiety in foreign language classrooms. Young (1994) also viewed “the instructor’s harsh manner of correcting student errors” as causing anxiety. Similarly, Palacios (1998) found several teacher characteristics to be associated with anxiety. These characteristics included absence of teacher support, an unsympathetic personality, lack of time for personal attention, favoritism, a sense that the class did not provide students with the tools necessary to match the teacher’s expectations, and the sense of being judged by the teacher or the desire to impress the teacher. On the other hand, students were less anxious in classes where teachers were supportive, patient, humorous, understanding of a student’s lack of knowledge, had a desire to help student achieve success, and cared about students.

The instructor’s beliefs about language teaching are a further source of language anxiety mentioned in the literature. According to Young (1994), instructors’ beliefs that could cause anxiety among students include the following:

1. some intimidation of students is necessary.

2. the instructor’s role is to correct students constantly.

3. the instructor cannot have students working in pairs because the class may get out of control.

4. that the instructor should be doing most of the talking and teaching.

5. the instructor is a drill sergeant. (Young 1994: 31).

Such beliefs about language teaching are likely to be manifested in the teacher’s manner and instructional practices in language classes, which, in turn, can lead to students’ feelings of anxiety.

Classroompractices

In addition to teacher characteristics, a number of classroom practices are associated with anxiety. In Palacios’ (1998) study, several classroom practices were cited by the students as anxiety-provoking. These included demands of oral production, feelings of being “put on the spot”, the fast pace of class, and the element of being evaluated. On the other hand, classrooms that had a communication focus or that encouraged group work were seen as the best environment for alleviating anxiety. Price (1991) reported that the greatest source of foreign language learners’ anxiety came from having to speak the target language in front of their peers in the classroom.

According to Young (1994), the following class procedures can lead to anxiety: (1) asking students to speak in the target language in front of the class; (2) frequent oral quizzes, or listening comprehension quizzes; (3) calling on students to answer questions in the target language. Earlier, Young (1990) noted a series of classroom activities (e.g. spontaneous role play, speaking, oral presentations, skits, presenting a prepared dialogue, writing on the blackboard) done in front of the class as perceived to be anxiety-provoking by students. As can be seen, activities in front of the class seem to be particularly stressful for learners.

Koch and Terrell (1991) investigated students’ opinions on various classroom activities associated with the Natural Approach, a language teaching method that is supposed to alleviate learners’ anxiety. Surprisingly, learners were found to be uncomfortable participating in some activities such as oral presentations, skits, and role play activities even in Natural Approach classes. In addition, students’ opinions on the same activities varied greatly. It was common for the same activity to be judged “comfortable” by some students while “stressful” by others. Therefore, the teacher should be sensitive to the needs of each student and adjust their use of classroom activities accordingly.

Tests are another common and frequently used classroom practice that has been identified to be anxiety-provoking. Horwitzetal. (1986: 127) noted that “since performance evaluation is an ongoing feature of most foreign language classes, test-anxiety is also relevant to a discussion of foreign language anxiety”. Horwitz (1986) reported a significant positive correlation (r=.53,p=.001) between test anxiety and foreign language anxiety. Many other researchers (Young 1991, 1994; Daily 1991; Palacios 1998) also believed that tests could lead to anxiety in foreign language classes. Young (1994: 32) listed three aspects of language testing that could provoke anxiety: (1) test formats that evoke more anxiety than others, e.g. listening comprehension, translation from the target language to English; (2) overstudying only to find that tests assess different materials from those that have been studied; (3) unfamiliar test tasks.

In addition to formal tests or quizzes, some other common classroom practices, such as being called on to read aloud or answer questions in the target language, speaking the target language in front of the class, writing answers on the blackboard and so on, also have an element of evaluation or testing (e.g. Horwitzetal. 1986; Young 1991, 1994; Tallon 2006). In these daily activities in language classes, students may feel they are either evaluated by the teacher or the other students in the class or both, which, in turn, can provoke anxiety among students.

Relationshipsamongstudents

In Palacios’ (1998) study, affiliation was found to be negatively correlated with foreign language anxiety, and lack of affiliation among students, after lack of teacher support, was the second most mentioned element of the classroom environment to which students attributed foreign language anxiety. Anxious students observed the prevalence of cliques as a characteristic that did not support overall classroom affiliation. In the same study, competition among students was found to be positively correlated to the levels of foreign language anxiety. In addition to lack of affiliation, the interviewees also discussed competition and self-comparison with other students as causing them to be more anxious in language classes. Although Palacios’ students did not explicitly make the connection between competition and anxiety, Bailey (1983) did establish that connection by analyzing her own language learning diary. The diary analysis showed that comparing herself to the other students in the classroom was the most important cause of her high level of anxiety in learning French as a foreign language.

The anxious students interviewed by Price (1991) made it very clear that speaking the target language in front of their peers was the most anxiety-provoking thing in language classes. Although speaking the target language can be a cause of anxiety, “being in front of peers” is also crucial in this scenario. Horwitzetal. (1986) identified fear of negative feedback to be related to foreign language anxiety. Although there is no denying that students may be afraid of being evaluated negatively by the teacher, they are also “acutely sensitive to the evaluations—real or imagined—of their peers” (1986: 128). When asked about suggestions for alleviating foreign language anxiety, some students mentioned that “getting to know the other students helped them to feel more relaxed by reducing the fear of being ridiculed and taking away the feeling that the others were all smarter and more confident” (Price 1991: 107).

Learner characteristics

In addition to the classroom environment, researchers have also approached the sources of anxiety from the perspective of the learner. A number of individual learner characteristics have been linked to foreign language anxiety. These characteristics include competitiveness, perfectionism, fear of negative feedback, low self-esteem, low self-perceptions of ability, and learner beliefs about language learning (e.g. Bailey 1983; Price 1991; Yan and Horwitz 2008; Tallon 2006). It should be noted that these characteristics are likely interrelated intricately with each other rather than being independent of one another. They probably work together in complex ways to cause foreign language anxiety.

Competitiveness

In a series of diary analyses, Bailey (1983: 96) found that competitiveness was a key factor that contributed to foreign language anxiety. Bailey defined competitiveness as “the desire to excel in comparison to others”. “Others” in this definition are typically the learner’s classmates, but a learner may compete with an idealized self-image or with learners not directly involved in the language classroom. If a learner perceives himself or herself as lacking when comparing to the others or the idealized self-image, such competiveness can lead to anxiety.

Bailey’s diary analysis showed that she tended to frequently compare herself with other learners in the class and that she became anxious when she found herself less proficient. However, her anxiety decreased as she perceived herself becoming more proficient and therefore better able to “compete” with their peers. Bailey (1983: 93) also noted that competitive language learners shared some other characteristics, such as “a desire to out-do other language learners”, “emphasis on or concern with tests and grades”, and “a desire to gain teachers’ approval”.

Perfectionism

Gregersen and Horwitz (2002) examined the relationship between foreign language anxiety and perfectionism among pre-service English teachers in Chile. They found that anxious learners tended to be perfectionists in their life. They also concluded that anxious language learners and perfectionists have a lot in common in terms of their characteristics. For example, both groups tended to have high standards, procrastinate, care too much about others’ opinions and worry about making errors. It was obvious that these characteristics had the potential for making language learning a less comfortable experience. For example, perfectionists tended to overestimate the negative impact of their errors and the possibility of others’ negative evaluations. They were excessively concerned about their teachers and peers’ evaluations and opinions. In contrast, the non-perfectionists tended to use self-evaluation more often and usually gave themselves positive evaluations. In addition, the perfectionist students not only were more concerned about their mistakes, but also rated their mistakes as more serious than the non-perfectionists. In Gregersen and Horwitz’s (2002) study, perfectionist students and anxious students shared a lot of common characteristics, and perfectionist students seemed to be more likely to suffer from anxiety than the non-perfectionists.

Fearofnegativeevaluation

Horwitzetal. (1986) identified fear of negative feedback to be one of the three anxieties related to foreign language anxiety. It seems that competitiveness and perfectionism both have a component of fear of negative evaluation. Horwitzetal. (1986) attributed anxiety associated with language learning and use to learners’ difficulties presenting themselves authentically in the new language:

Adults typically perceive themselves as reasonable intelligent, socially-adept individuals, sensitive to different socio-cultural mores. These assumptions are rarely challenged when communicating in a native language as it is not usually difficult to understand others or to make oneself understood. However, the situation when learning a foreign language stands in marked contrast. As an individual’s communication attempts will be evaluated according to uncertain or even unknown linguistic and socio-cultural standards, second language communication entails risk-taking and is necessarily problematic. Because complex and nonspontaneous mental operations are required in order to communicate at all, any performance in the L2 is likely to challenge an individual’s self-concept as a competent communicator and lead to reticence, self-consciousness, fear or even panic (1986: 128).

According to these scholars, foreign language learners were not able to communicate freely or present themselves authentically in the foreign because their language proficiency was not good enough. For example, they could sound very humorous, witty or smart in their native language, but they were not able to present their charm in the foreign language in front of others. In this case, self-conscious language learners were worried that people would see them differently from the way they see themselves. Horwitz (2000) considered those feelings to be similar to the discomfort people would experience when they get a bad haircut or wear clothing that they do not like. As can be seen, the core of Horwitz’s explanation of the cause of anxiety is the fear of negative evaluation. Horwitz’s argumentation also seems to support competitiveness as a cause of anxiety. In Horwitz’s explanation, foreign language learners compare themselves to an idealized self-image, that is, an “intelligent”, “socially-adept” individual; anxiety arises when they find they are not able to reach their self-created expectations.

Lowself-esteemandself-perceptions

Low self-esteem and low self-perceptions have been associated with anxiety by several researchers. Young (1994) cited low self-esteem as one of the learner characteristics contributing to foreign language anxiety. Earlier, Young (1992) conducted a series of interviews with language experts to elicit their thoughts on foreign language anxiety. Krashen responded that an individual’s degree of self-esteem was highly related to language anxiety:

The more I think about self-esteem, the more impressed I am with its impact. This is what causes anxiety in a lot of people. People with low self-esteem worry about what their peers think; they are concerned with pleasing others. And that I think has to do a great degree with anxiety (Young 1992: 15).

Price’s (1991) study also supported this point of view. In her study, the subjects were highly anxious language learners and most of them believed that their language skills were weaker than those of their classmates and that everyone else in the class looked down upon them because they did a poor job in language classes. Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) found that anxious language learners tended to underestimate their actual language proficiency, which suggested that anxious language learners tended to have low self-esteem and low perceptions of their language competence and ability.

Competitiveness is likely to be related to low self-esteem or low self-perceptions. As mentioned previously, Bailey (1983) reported that language learners tended to compare themselves with others, especially their classmates. When they perceived themselves to be less proficient or have weaker language learning ability, they became anxious or stressed.

Onwuegbuzieetal. (1999) explored a number of demographic and self-perception factors for relationships with foreign language anxiety. The results showed that self-perceptions and foreign language anxiety were negatively correlated. In addition, the seven variables, including three self-perception variables, accounted for 40% of the total variance in foreign language anxiety. The self-perception factors were students’ expectation of their overall achievement in foreign language courses, their perceived self-worth, and their perceived scholastic competence. Thus, low self-perceptions and low self-esteem likely contribute to foreign language anxiety.

Learnerbeliefs

A number of researchers have associated students’ beliefs about language learning with anxiety (Horwitzetal. 1986; Horwitz 1988, 1989; Price 1991; Young 1991; Palacio 1998). Young (1991: 428) held that “learner beliefs about language learning are a major contributor to language anxiety” and that “when beliefs and reality clash, anxiety results”. Many students have unrealistic expectations about language learning. For example, language learners in Horwitz’s (1988) study had the following beliefs: (1) whether their utterances are correct or not is very important; (2) “an excellent accent” is very desirable; (3) language learning primarily involves translation; (4) two years of study is sufficient for achieving fluency in a foreign language; (5) some people are more gifted in learning a foreign language than others. As can be seen, these beliefs are either erroneous or unrealistic. When these expectations are not met in reality (which is very likely to happen), language learners may develop negative perceptions about their personal ability as a language learner. As low self-esteem or low self-perceptions can result in anxiety, these learners can become very anxious language learners with these wrong or unrealistic beliefs.

Specifically, there are two studies that examined the relationship between beliefs about language learning and levels of foreign language anxiety, which seemed to provide some support for the above argumentation. Horwitz (1989) found that more anxious learners in beginning university Spanish classes evaluated language learning to be relatively difficult and considered themselves as poor language learners. Palacios (1998) found several beliefs to be associated with anxiety. For example, mastering a language is an overwhelming task; translation is indispensable in order to speak in the foreign language; and learning a language is easier for young kids. If one perceives himself or herself to have low language learning ability, he or she will naturally perceive language learning to be very difficult and thus feel anxious about learning the language.

The literature seems to suggest that erroneous or unrealistic language beliefs can result in low-perceptions of one’s language learning ability, which, in turn, lead to the feelings of difficulty and anxiety in learning a foreign language.

Summary

In summary, a number of learner characteristics have been identified to be potential sources of foreign language anxiety. These characteristics include competitiveness, perfectionism, fear of negative feedback, low self-esteem, low self-perceptions of language learning ability and language beliefs. As discussed previously in this section, these characteristics are not independent of each other; rather, they overlap and they are interrelated to one another.

For example, when a competitive learner compares himself to an idealized self-image, he or she is also likely to be a perfectionist. Like perfectionist, the competitive learner sets a high standard for language learning. Both competitive and perfectionist students are worried about negative evaluation and are concerned about making mistakes, which are also manifestations of anxiety. Competitiveness can easily result in negative self-perceptions. When the competitive learner judges himself or herself to have weaker skills or learning abilities than the other students in a language class, he or she is likely to suffer from anxiety. Language learners who hold unrealistic beliefs are also likely to form negative self-perceptions when beliefs and reality clash. Language learners who have low self-esteem and low self-perceptions tend to worry more about others’ opinions and thus are more likely to get anxious.

Therefore, all these characteristics are interrelated to each other and work together in complicated ways to cause anxiety in foreign language learning.

Uniqueness of the language learning process

Many people claim to have fear about learning a foreign language, although these same people may be good learners in other situations (Horwitzetal. 1986). This is probably because foreign language learning is different from learning other things such as mathematics or science.

According to Horwitzetal. (1986), foreign language anxiety arises from the uniqueness of the language learning process. The question here is: what makes the foreign language learning process unique? In the process of learning a foreign language, learners are trained to speak, listen, read and write in the target language. Speaking, listening, reading and writing not only accompany the process of learning, but also are the goals of learning. The researcher of this study holds that the uniqueness of the foreign language learning process mainly lies in learning the four skills of a foreign language, i.e. speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

A number of researchers have identified anxieties associated with the four specific skills (see Horwitzetal. 2009 for a detailed review of these studies). Although the main purposes of these researchers who have identified specific speaking, listening, reading and writing anxieties are to distinguish these specific anxieties from general foreign language anxiety, I see speaking, listening, reading, and writing as sources of foreign language anxiety. Since speaking, listening, speaking and writing are inherently associated with foreign language learning, and the main goal of foreign language learning is to develop foreign language competence in the four areas, I further argue that the anxieties associated with the four skills are inherently associated with foreign language learning. This view matches very well with Horwitz’s (2008) opinion that some amount of anxiety is inherent in the uniqueness of foreign language learning.

Speaking has been recognized as an important source of anxiety. For example, Horwitzetal. (1986) identified communication apprehension to be conceptually relevant to foreign language anxiety. As a matter of fact, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), the most famous and most frequently used measure of foreign language anxiety, is primarily focused on students’ anxious feelings of speaking the foreign language in the classroom setting. Among many other researchers, Palacios (1998) found that speaking caused the most anxiety among the learners and Price (1991) reported that the most anxiety-provoking thing in learning a foreign language, according to her students, was to speak the target language in front of their peers.

After speaking, foreign language listening has most frequently been associated with anxiety. Scholars (e.g. Horwitzetal. 1986; Scarcella and Oxford 1992; Oxford 1993) have found that foreign language listening can be a source for anxiety. For example, Horwitzetal. (1986) mentioned that some students reported hearing only noise when they did listening activities for the foreign language class. Scarcella and Oxford (1992) observed that language learners were likely to become anxious if listening tasks involved an unfamiliar topic. Oxford (1993) also reported that anxiety frequently occurred when students perceived a listening activity to be too hard. Vogely’s (1998) students reported several sources of listening anxiety. For example, when the listening material was unclear or too fast, students would probably feel anxious. When students believed that they must understand every single word in the listening material, they were more likely to experience anxiety in listening activities as understanding every single word was not realistic, especially for beginning learners. Kim (2000) developed a Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale to examine the existence of listening anxiety and found a negative relationship between listening anxiety and listening proficiency among University EFL learners in Korea. Elkhafaifi (2005) found that foreign language learning anxiety and listening anxiety were separate but related phenomena that both correlated negatively with achievement.

Saito, Horwitz and Garza (1999) developed a scale to measure foreign language reading anxiety. They found a 0.6 correlation between general foreign language anxiety as measured by the FLCAS and reading anxiety. In other words, foreign language reading anxiety was distinguishable from general foreign language anxiety. Their findings also indicated that students’ levels of general foreign language anxiety were not significantly different for the three different target languages (French, Russian, Japanese), but levels of reading anxiety were significantly different for students of the three target languages examined in their study. Students of Japanese had the highest levels of reading anxiety, followed by students of French, while Russian students had the lowest level of reading anxiety. They speculated that reading anxiety was caused by unfamiliar scripts and lack of necessary cultural background knowledge in the target language.

Similarly, Chengetal. (1999) attempted to differentiate general foreign language anxiety and writing language anxiety. They concluded that there appeared to be a language-skill-specific anxiety associated with second language writing and that foreign language anxiety and writing anxiety were clearly distinguishable. Cheng (2004) took a step further and developed a measure of second language writing anxiety, which turned out to have high reliability and validity.

The results of all the above-mentioned studies show that the uniqueness of the foreign language learning process, more specifically, the process of learning the four skills, i.e. speaking, listening, reading, and writing in a foreign language, is an important source of foreign language anxiety.

The target language

Another potential source of anxiety that is shared by most language learners but has not yet been fully explored by researchers lies in the target language. Many Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners who took part in Luo’s (2011) interview study confessed that they felt more anxious in learning Chinese than learning Spanish as a foreign language. The reason seems to be simple. Chinese is more difficult than Spanish for American learners because Spanish is more similar to English while Chinese has exotic linguistic features such as tones and characters.

Research has shown that Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) classes have a high drop-out rate (MLA 2007). According to many researchers and scholars, the high drop-out rates of the less commonly taught foreign languages such as Chinese and Japanese are likely due to the difficulty level of these languages (Samimy and Tabuse 1992; Norman 1996; Pease 1996; Oh 1996). Studies have also shown that drop-outs experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety (Gardneretal. 1987) and that highly anxious students were more at risk for dropping out of their language classes (Baileyetal. 2003). In addition, many studies show that anxious foreign language learners tended to perceive foreign language learning as a very difficult task (Horwitz 1989; Palacios 1998). Thus, it is reasonable to think the high drop-out rate of Chinese classes in the U.S. is related to students’ anxiety experienced in Chinese classes and anxiety, which, in turn, may be a result of the difficulty level of the Chinese language.

The target language as a source of foreign language anxiety can also be inferred from a number of other studies. For example, Le (2004) found that American learners of Chinese experienced the highest level of anxiety when learning Chinese in study-abroad programs in China compared to the anxiety levels of learners of other languages in other studies. Aida (1994) found that the anxiety level of students of Japanese (M=96.7) was slightly higher than that of Horwitz’s (1986) study (M=94.5). She (1994: 158) thought this result was understandable because “students may feel more anxious in learning a non-western, foreign language like Japanese than in learning commonly taught Western languages such as Spanish”.

In addition, Japanese FL learners’ anxiety was found to differ somewhat from that of French learners in several ways. For example, the Japanese learners’ anxiety level increased as instruction continued whereas the anxiety of French FL learners decreased (Samimy and Tabuse 1992; Saito and Sammy 1996; Gardneretal. 1977; Gardneretal. 1979). Kitano (2001) attributed the difference in results to the well-known difficulty of the Japanese language and to the much-discussed differences between the Japanese and American cultures. Also, as mentioned previously, learners’ foreign language reading anxiety significantly differed for three different target languages (French, Russian and Japanese) (Saitoetal. 1999). As can be seen, the target language seems to be a source of foreign language anxiety. I would take a step further and argue that some amount of foreign language anxiety is language-internal or inherent in the target language.

However, interestingly, Saitoetal. (1999) found no significant differences in general foreign language anxiety level among learners of the three different target languages. In their study, they used the FLCAS, a generic foreign language anxiety scale that primarily addresses speaking anxiety to measure foreign language learners’ general foreign language anxiety for all target languages. This “against-common-sense” result may be due to the fact that the FLCAS does not take into consideration the characteristics of specific target languages, and/or due to the fact that it does not include enough items reflective of listening, reading and writing anxieties.

CONCLUSION: THE FOUR-DIMENSION SOURCE MODEL OF FLA

A close review of the literature shows that foreign language anxiety may stem from four major sources, i.e. the classroom environment, the learner characteristics, the target language, and the language learning process itself. The present study proposes a four-dimension source model of foreign language anxiety based on this result (see Figure 1). This four-dimension source model indicates that some amount of foreign language anxiety is inherent in the classroom environment, the learner, the target language, and the uniqueness of the language learning process respectively. In other words, some amount of foreign language anxiety may be understood as the classroom-environment-induced anxiety, the learner-characteristics-induced anxiety, the target-language-induced anxiety, and the language-learning-induced anxiety respectively.

Figure 1: The four-dimension source model of foreign language anxiety

This categorization of sources is indirectly supported by the definition of foreign language anxiety proposed by Horwitzetal. (1986: 128), who see foreign language anxiety as “a distinct complex set of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process”. In the foreign language learning context, the learner, the classroom environment, the target language, and the unique process of foreign language learning interact with one another and anxiety arises from the intricate interaction.

However, this four-dimension source model does not imply that the four dimensions of sources are independent of each other. Instead, they should be seen as interrelated and complementary in causing foreign language anxiety. For example, a competitive student who constantly competes with the other students and worries about others’ negative evaluation may get more anxious than a carefree student in an anxiety-provoking classroom environment where the instructor is harsh and the classmates are hostile and competitive. In addition, if the target language happens to be Chinese, which is perceived to be very difficult by many learners, he or she may experience even higher levels of anxiety. In other words, foreign language anxiety is likely a combined effect of the four sources.

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