Second language listening comprehension: The role of anxiety and enjoyment in listening metacognitive awareness

Emotion in second language acquisition (SLA) has recently received greater attention because it is largely implicated in daily conversations, which may affect second or foreign language (L2) use including listening comprehension. Most research into emotion and L2 listening comprehension is focused exclusively on anxiety, with an attempt to reduce its negative effects on individuals’ listening performance. With the arrival of positive psychology in SLA, researchers began to take a holistic view of a wider range of emotions including enjoyment that language learners experience during their L2 communication. The current study explored the relationships among listening anxiety, enjoyment, listening comprehension performance, and listening metacognitive awareness among a group of 410 international students in a Canadian university. Correlational analyses showed that listening anxiety was negatively correlated with enjoyment. However, these two variables shared only 18% of their variance, indicating that listening anxiety and enjoyment are related but independent emotions. This study suggests that anxiety and enjoyment in L2 listening are not the opposite ends of the same emotional continuum, but each serves a different purpose. L2 learners should work to find intriguing and enjoyable experiences in language learning, rather than focusing merely on reducing anxiety.

On College Students’ Listening Anxiety and Listening Strategy

Research on college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy has become a hot issue and attracts much concern of scholars and experts in the second language acquisition. Some researches prove that listening anxiety is universal and pervasive in the language learning process and listening strategy plays a crucial role in lowering or reducing college students’ listening anxiety and improving their listening ability. In order to study college students’ listening anxiety, listening strategy and the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy, an empirical study is carried out on the 2020th English majors. This study combines quantitative method and qualitative method and adopts “Questionnaire about English listening strategy” and “Questionnaire about English listening anxiety”. The study reveals that: firstly, among the listening strategy, meta-cognitive strategy is the most frequent strategy that college students use; cognitive strategy is more frequent than social or affective strategy used by college students; social or affective strategy is the least frequent strategy that college students use. Secondly, although college students suffer from universal listening anxiety, the level of listening anxiety is low. Thirdly, the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy is not significant. It also means that listening anxiety is not related to social or affective strategy, related to meta-cognitive strategy. This study aims to help Chinese college educators and students to realize the effect of listening anxiety and the appropriate use of listening strategy.

Testing Effects of Foreign Language Listening Anxiety on Chinese University Students' English Listening Test Performance

The present research explored how foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA) affected Chinese university students' English listening test performance and how proficiency and gender mediated the effects of FLLA on the latter. Two different populations from two universities in China answered the 20-item Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS) as well as a demographic questionnaire and took an English listening test. Analyses of the collected data revealed the following major findings: (a) Five latent factors underlay the FLLAS, (b) when working alone, FLLA significantly negatively predicted students' English listening test performance, and (c) when working with proficiency and gender, English proficiency level, gender and FLLAS2 (proficiency in English listening) significantly predicted students' English listening test performance. These findings confirm the negative effects of FLLA on students' English listening test performance. They also indicate that English proficiency and gender mediate FLLA's effects on the latter, with English proficiency not only directly but also indirectly affecting the latter.

Changes in and Effects of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety and Listening Anxiety on Chinese Undergraduate Students’ English Proficiency in the COVID-19 Context

The present longitudinal survey study explored changes in and effects of foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and listening anxiety (FLLA) on Chinese undergraduate students’ English proficiency over a semester in the COVID-19 context. A set of 182 matching questionnaires was collected from first-year undergraduate English as a foreign language learners at two time points of a 16-week semester. Analyses of the data revealed the following major findings: (1) the participants experienced high levels of FLCA and FLLA both at the beginning and end of the semester, neither of which changed significantly during the semester, (2) FLCA and FLLA were highly positively related to each other, (3) FLCA and FLLA significantly predicted students’ self-rated proficiency in listening and speaking English, and (4) confidence in using English, efforts and motivation to learn English and interaction with instructors and peers mediated FLCA and FLLA to exert effects on students’ self-perceived proficiency in listening and speaking English. These findings indicate that the learning environment is critical in influencing the levels of and changes in FLCA and listening anxiety and that these two types of foreign language anxiety are serious issues in the pandemic foreign language learning context.

Listening Anxiety Experienced by English Language Learners: A Comparison between Iranian and Turkish Teacher Candidates

This study focuses on the listening anxiety experienced by teacher candidates (TCs) in Iran and Turkey. Using different data collection methods, including two questionnaires, listening test, and semi-structured interviews, this study tried to investigate the factors behind Foreign Language Listening Anxiety (FLLA) among Iranian teacher candidates (TCs). The participants of the study in Iran context were 29 teacher candidates studying at BA level in English Language Teaching. All of the participants were asked to complete these two questionnaires with the background information regarding their age, gender, years of language study. The participants’ answers to FLLAS and FLCAS were analyzed with spss to obtain frequencies and percentages. The results were compared to the same study by Bekleyen. The findings revealed that Iranian TCs experienced a high level of FLLA compared to Turkish TCs and showed a significant positive correlation between FLLA and FLCA, which means that teacher candidates with higher levels of language anxiety tended to have higher levels of listening anxiety. In addition, interview data suggested that Iranian and Turkish participants’ FLLA mostly originated from the same source: inadequacy of past education in listening skill. Furthermore, practice was the most frequent strategy used by participants in these two countries to overcome this kind of anxiety.

FACTORS AFFECTING LISTENING ANXIETY OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASSROOM

In the process of listening, anxiety is a natural response that occurs to students who can divert the listening process. Thus, the purpose of this study is to find out factors affecting listening anxiety of senior high school students in the English classroom. The method used in this study was mixed method because the data obtained were in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. Participants in this study were 35 senior high school students in 2019-2020 academic year. The instrument used to collect data were questionnaire and interview. Questionnaire contained 14 questions was adopted from The Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS) developed by Kim (2000) that was given to the students and interview was conducted with an English teacher and three students. The results of this study indicate that there are several factors that cause listening anxiety. The first, the students feel confused and anxious because they are unable to catch the words conveyed by the speaker. The second, the students feel difficult to understand the pronunciation of the speaker. The third, the students feel afraid when the speaker conveying information too quickly. The fourth, the students feel worried about the limited time in doing the listening task. The fifth, the students feel anxious because they think the other student more understand about the contents of the English recording. And the last, the students feel nervous when they do not understand the meaning of each word because they are lack of vocabulary in English. In conclusion, the students feel anxious in doing the listening task which resulted in their listening skills getting lower when learning English in the classroom