Hindawi Publishing Corporation

Education Research International

Volume 2011, Article ID 493167, 8 pages
doi:10.1155/2011/493167

Research Article
An Exploration of Foreign Language Anxiety and
English Learning Motivation

Meihua Liu and Wenhong Huang

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Correspondence should be addressed to Meihua Liu, [email protected]

Received 25 August 2010; Revised 12 November 2010; Accepted 18 December 2010

Academic Editor: John C. K. Lee

Copyright © 2011 M. Liu and W. Huang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.

Perceived to be two important affective variables, anxiety and motivation have been found to be highly correlated to second/foreign
language acquisition. In order to examine the relationship between foreign language anxiety, English learning motivation, and
performance in English, the present study investigated 980 undergraduate students from three universities in China who answered
a 76-item survey. Analyses of the data revealed that (1) the respondents generally did not feel anxious in English and were
moderately motivated to learn English, (2) foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation were significantly negatively
correlated with each other, and (3) both foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation were significantly correlated with
students’ performance in English. Among the scales, foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCAS), intrinsic motivation (IntrinM),
instrumental motivation (InstruM), fear of being negatively evaluated (FLCAS1), and interest in foreign languages and cultures
(IFLC) proved to be powerful predictors for the latter.

1. Introduction Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). Gardner [5] had also

acknowledged that second/foreign language (SL/FL) anxiety
Anxiety, one of the most prominent and pervasive emotions, was situation-specific and claimed that individual differences
was defined as a feeling of uneasy suspense by Rachman in anxiety contributed to differences in achievement. The
[1] and has been a focus of research in foreign language French Use Anxiety Scale and French Class Anxiety Scale
education since early 1970s. Over the years, state anxiety, were proposed [3, 5, 9] to measure this anxiety.
trait anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety have become Since then, studies on foreign language anxiety have been
three mainstream approaches to anxiety research in language flourishing, using the FLCAS, or other scales, or other data-
teaching and learning [2–4]. As Speilberger [4] distin- collecting instruments such as diaries, journals, interviews,
guished, state anxiety was transitory and fluctuated over time and observations [6, 8, 11–18]. The studies have revealed that
and situation, while trait anxiety was relatively stable all the foreign language anxiety, though sometimes facilitating [11,
time. 12, 19, 20], is predominantly debilitating in SL/FL learning
Among situation-specific anxieties, foreign language [2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 21]. For example, high-anxious students
classroom anxiety has been extensively researched [2, 3, 5– tend to perform worse than their low-anxious peers; they also
10] since Horwitz et al. [2] advanced a theory of foreign tend to speak (more) briefly and sometimes even inaudibly.
language classroom. They believed foreign language anxiety Highly anxious learners can even speak with shaking hands
was responsible for students’ negative emotional reactions to and/or legs; some even go blank when having to speak the
language learning since they had to deal with a totally foreign target language. Thus, many choose to remain silent in class
language and culture. They identified three components of and thus their oral proficiency in the target language just
foreign language classroom anxiety: communication appre- falls down or becomes lower, as found in Liu’s [12, 13]
hension, fear of negative evaluation, and test anxiety. To mea- studies. Meanwhile, all types of SL/FL anxiety have been
sure the anxiety, they designed the 33-item Foreign Language evidenced to be correlated to confidence and self-esteem,
2 Education Research International

attitude, motivation, and cultural differences, and so forth (2) how are foreign language anxiety and motivation
[3, 6, 12, 14, 22]. related to each other?
Likewise, motivation has also been widely researched on (3) how do foreign language anxiety and motivation
and agreed to be an important affective variable influencing affect performance in English?
SL/FL learning [5, 23–31]. Over the decades, several moti-
vation theories on language learning have been proffered,
the most widely recognized being the social-educational 2. Research Design
model [5, 32], the process-oriented model [23, 25, 33], the 2.1. Participants. The participants were 980 (617 male and
self-determination theory proposed by Deci and Ryan, as 363 female) first-year non-English majors from various dis-
discussed in Dörnyei [33], and the achievement motivation ciplines such as law, engineering, mechanics, and economics
theory [23–25]. The core concept of the theories is that moti- and management at three universities in China. All were
vation is influenced by attitudes towards and orientations to enrolled in credit-bearing and compulsory English courses
learn a SL, that motivation, especially integrative or intrinsic offered by their universities. With an age range from 13 (only
motivation, boosts SL/FL learning and maintains learners’ one extremely exceptional student) to 21 and an average age
efforts to learn the language, and that motivation interacts of 18.49, the majority (470/48%) of the participants aged
with self-confidence, language anxiety, self-efficacy, causal 18, followed by the group aged 19 (330/33.7%), and then
attributions, L2 competence, and other variables. This has came the groups aged 20 (102/10.4%) and 17 (60/6.1%),
been confirmed by numerous empirical studies which expose respectively.
that motivation has a direct effect on anxiety, self-efficacy,
self-confidence, and second language achievement [16, 34],
that integrative motivation is closely related to persistence, 2.2. Instrument. For this study, the students completed a
language attrition and retention [28, 35], and that intrinsic survey consisting of a 36-item Foreign Language Classroom
motivation contributes more to achievements in learning a Anxiety Scale, a 40-item English Learning Motivation Scale,
second language than instrumental motivation [36, 37]. Liu’s and the background questionnaire, as detailed below. All the
[38] study of 547 Chinese university students revealed that items except the background questionnaire items were placed
the more anxious student tended to be less motivated to learn on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to
English, which supported a similar finding in Hao et al. [39]. “strongly agree”.
In addition, achievement motivation is found to be positively
correlated to risk taking, persistence, and competence while 2.2.1. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale. This
negatively correlated to test anxiety [39, 40]. Meanwhile, 36-item Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale was
many EFL learners self-reported to be more instrumentally directly adopted from that in Liu’s [13] and Liu and Jackson’s
than integratively motivated [28, 41–43]. [8] studies which was adapted from the scale developed by
As reviewed, both anxiety and motivation play an Horwitz et al. [2]. As theorized by Horwitz et al. [2], the
important role in affecting language learning outcomes, FLCAS intended to measure three dimensions of foreign
meanwhile, they are closely related to each other in SL/FL language classroom anxiety: fear of negative evaluation
acquisition. Even so, studies on language anxiety and moti- (FLCAS1) comprising 12 items which were reflective of fear
vation simultaneously in a language learning context seem to of being negatively evaluated, communication apprehension
be relatively scant so far. Thus, more research is called for (FLCAS2) consisting of 7 items which indicated apprehen-
in this area to determine how and to what extent foreign sion of speech communication, and test anxiety (FLCAS3)
language anxiety and motivation interact with each other having 2 items suggestive of fear of English tests.
to affect language learning outcomes. It is especially so in
foreign language learning contexts where learners normally 2.2.2. English Learning Motivation Scale. This 40-item
have little access and exposure to the target language. In English Learning Motivation Scale (ELMS) was designed
these contexts, they learn the target language mainly for a with reference to several sources [44–46] to measure six
concrete purpose such as school requirement and finding a dimensions of motivation: motivation intensity, intrinsic
better job in the future. When having to use the language, motivation, language requirement, instrumental motivation,
they often become upset, nervous, and even panicked due to integrative motivation, and interest in foreign languages and
little practice. This is usually the case in China where EFL cultures.
learners have little use of English in their daily life despite that Strength of motivation was included because students
increasing importance has been attached to the language. might not really work hard to learn the language even
Therefore, the present study, situated in Chinese university though they had the motivation to learn English for various
EFL contexts, attempted to investigate the relationship reasons. The 6-item Strength of Motivation (SOM) used
between foreign language anxiety and motivation in relation in Liu’s [38] study aimed to measure learners’ motivation
to their interactive effect on performance in English. And the intensity. The 6-item Intrinsic Motivation (IntrinM) was
following research questions are of particular interest: adopted from Schmidt and Watanabe [45] to index to what
extent learners were intrinsically motivated to learn English.
The 1-item Language Requirement (LR) was incorporated
(1) what are the broad profiles of the Chinese university in the ELMS because it was a fact that at least one
students’ foreign language anxiety and motivation? English course was required with credits at each university.
Education Research International 3

Table 1: Characteristics of instruments (N = 980). language anxiety, motivation, and their predictive effect on
the students’ performance in English.
Mean
Name of the item-total
No. of items Reliability 3. Results and Discussion
instrument correlation
(P = .01)
3.1. Broad Profiles of the Students’ Foreign Language Anxiety
FLCAS 36 .921 .582
and English Learning Motivation. To explore the broad
FLCAS1 12 .81 .521 profiles of the students’ foreign language anxiety and English
FLCAS2 7 .744 .391 learning motivation, the researchers computed the mean,
FLCAS3 2 .46 .32 standard deviation, median, mode, score range, skewness
SOM 6 .591 .210 and kurtosis of each scale. When doing so, the researchers
IntrinM 6 .772 .241 adjusted the values assigned to the items reflective of
InstruM 11 .751 .385 little anxiety in foreign language class, or no motivation.
Thus, the higher the FLCAS score, the more anxious the
IntegM 12 .880 .475
respondent reportedly felt; the higher the FLCAS1 score, the
IFLC 4 .741 .325 more s/he feared being negatively evaluated; the higher the
ELMS 40 .891 .451 FLCAS2 score, the more apprehensive s/he was of speech
Note: The reliability and mean item-total correlation of LR were not communication; the higher the FLCAS3 score, the more
calculated since it had only 1 item. worried s/he was about English tests. Similarly, the higher
the ELMS score and its subscale scores, the more motivated
the respondent reportedly was to learn English for various
Both the 11-item Instrumental Motivation (InstruM) and reasons.
the 12-item Integrative Motivation (IntegM) were adopted Having 36 items with values of 1 to 5 assigned to the
from Vandergrift [46] and Noels et al. [44] studies with five descriptors of each item, respectively, the FLCAS has
repetitious items deleted to measure to what extent learners a possible score range of 36 to 180. A total score of more
were instrumentally and integratively motivated to learn than 144 on the FLCAS implies high anxiety, a total score
English, respectively. Finally, the 4-item Interest in Foreign of 108 to 144 signifies moderate anxiety, and a total score of
Languages and Cultures (IFLC) was adopted from Schmidt less than 108 indicates no/little anxiety in English language
and Watanabe’s [45] study to examine how learners were classrooms. Likewise, a total score of more than 68 on the
interested in foreign languages and cultures. 12-item FLCAS1 suggests a strong fear, a total score of 36 to
Preliminary statistical analyses revealed high internal 68 indicates moderate fear, and a total score of less than 36
consistency for the measures (see Table 1). reflects no/little fear of being negatively evaluated. Regarding
the 7-item FLCAS2, the score ranges for being strongly,
2.2.3. Background Information. The background question- moderately, and strongly/moderately not apprehensive of
naire aimed to gather the respondents’ demographic infor- speech communication, respectively, are more than 28, 21–
mation such as name, gender, department, university, and 28, and less than 21. The score ranges for a student to be
English-learning time. strongly, moderately, and not anxious about English tests,
respectively, are above 8, 6–8, and below 6 for the 2-item
2.2.4. Performance in English. All the participants’ scores in FLCAS3. Similarly, the score ranges for great, moderate, and
the course final exam taken in the last (16th) week of the low strength of motivation or intrinsic motivation are more
term were collected as their performance in English [13]. The than 24, 18–24, and less than 18, respectively, on the 6-item
exam consisted of listening, reading, and writing (speaking SOM or IntrinM. Likewise, a total score of more than 44 on
was excluded because it was time consuming), but only the the 11-item InstruM implies high instrumental motivation,
total score was used in the present study. a total score of 33 to 44 represents moderate and a total score
of below 33 indicates low instrumental motivation. The score
ranges for high, moderate, and low integrative motivation are
2.3. Procedure. The survey was administered to 30 intact more than 48, 36–48 and less than 36, respectively, on the 12-
classes of first-year undergraduate non-English majors at item IntegM. And the score ranges for high, moderate, and
three universities in the 14th week of the first 16-week low interest in foreign languages and cultures are more than
term of an academic year. The survey was competed in 16, 12–16 and less than 12, respectively, on the 4-item IFLC.
about 13 minutes. Of 1121 collected questionnaires, 980 were The results are summarized in Table 2.
complete for further statistical analyses. As shown in Table 2, the students achieved a mean of
99.79 (SD = 18.71), a median of 100, and a mode of 89 on
2.4. Data Analysis. For each measure, the mean, standard the FLCAS, which all fell below the scale midpoint of 108,
deviation, median, mode, and score range were calculated to indicating that the respondents generally did not experience
determine to what extent the students felt anxious in English anxiety in English classrooms. Meanwhile, the FLCAS1 had
language classrooms and/or how they were motivated to a mean of 33.51, a median of 34, and a mode of 36; the
learn English. Then, correlational analyses and regression FLCAS2 enjoyed a mean of 19.92, a median of 20 and
analyses were run to explore the relationship between foreign a mode of 19; and the FLCAS3 possessed a mean of 5.48,
4 Education Research International

Table 2: Statistical analyses of the measured scales (N = 980).

Measure Mean SD Median Mode Range Skewness Kurtosis

FLCAS1 33.51 6.88 34 36 12–59 −.067 −.009
FLCAS2 19.92 4.38 20 19 7–35 −.003 .092
FLCAS3 5.48 1.59 6 6 2–10 .163 −.224
FLCAS 99.79 18.72 100 89 36–172 −.021 .380
SOM 21.24 3.42 21 22 6–30 −.285 .571
IntrinM 19.26 4.18 19 19 6–30 −.122 .036
LR 2.62 1.13 2 2 1–5 .348 −.952
InstruM 35.95 5.95 36 39 14–53 −.444 .785
IntegM 37.32 8.13 37 36 12–60 −.164 .033
IFLC 14.69 2.83 15 16 4–20 −.875 1.701
ELMS 131.08 17.68 131 127 55–184 −.177 .778

a median and a mode of 6.00. Generally speaking, all the and learners, as evidenced in the newly postulated College
subscale scores barely exceeded their scale midpoints (36, English Course Teaching Requirement [50]. Accordingly,
21, and 6 for the FLCAS1, FLCAS2, and FLCAS3, resp.). as Chinese people know more about the world, they have
This further confirms the result of the FLCAS data that the become more interested in knowing foreign languages and
participants generally did not feel anxious in English class, cultures. Also, it is understandable that the participants
fearful of being negatively evaluated, or apprehensive about were fairly motivated to learn English for various pragmatic
both speaking and tests, as found in studies with students reasons such as for a better job, more money, high marks, and
of similar backgrounds [8, 43]. This, as discussed in [8, 43], personal development, as found in a range of other studies
might be attributed to the fact that these learners had been [5, 24, 28, 43, 44, 51, 52].
learning English for more than six years suppose they started In addition, a mean of 19.26 on IntrinM, a mean of
to learn the language in junior high school or even longer 37.32 on IntegM, both slightly above the scale midpoints 18
since the primary school or even kindergarten, although the and 36, respectively, show that the respondents were only
language was seldom used in their daily life. Even so, it moderately intrinsically as well as integratively motivated
should be noted that the respondents in the present study to learn English, contrary to Liu’s [28] but consistent with
reported to be less anxious than those in existing studies in Lamb’s [53] (which studied integrative motivation of 219
similar Chinese EFL contexts [8, 13, 14, 43, 47, 48]. This Indonesian high school students) and Yang et al.’s [43]
might be partially explained by the fact that Chinese EFL findings. To these learners, it was not a (high) priority to
learners have attached increasing importance to English in enjoy learning and using English in or outside the classroom,
recent years as the country interacts with the world more and which might be due to their heavy load of major study.
more frequently, which results in higher proficiency, more Nor would they attach such feelings as guilt, satisfaction,
confidence, and less anxiety in English learning. and excitement to English learning. They were not much
As seen from Table 2, the respondents obtained a mean motivated to learn English to become similar to a native
of 131.08, a median of 131, and a mode of 127 on the speaker, which might be because English, though important
ELMS, all highly above the scale midpoint 120, suggesting in certain ways, was still rarely used in their daily life.
that the majority of the participants were moderately or Further, the students scored 2.62 on LR, with a median
even strongly motivated to learn English, as found in and mode of 2, all below the scale midpoint 3, implying that
existing studies in similar Chinese EFL contexts [28, 43, 49]. compulsory courses, contrary to our expectation, did not
This is not surprising in that Chinese EFL learners have constitute a great motivation for them to learn English. This
been increasingly aware of the importance in English as actually needs further research since it has been long held
globalization speeds up in recent years. that taking compulsory courses contributes to enhancing
Meanwhile, a mean of 21.24 on SOM, 35.95 on InstruM, learners’ English learning motivation.
and 14.69 on IFLC, respectively, coupled with their medians
Finally, a normal distribution can be observed for all
and modes which all well exceeded their scale midpoints
the scales, as proved by the skewness and kurtosis values
(18, 33 and 12 for SOM, InstruM and IFLC, resp.), imply
presented in Table 2. This lends further support to the
that the participants had a moderate or even strong strength
finding that the respondents generally were not anxious in
of motivation, were moderately or strongly instrumentally
English language class and were moderately motivated to
motivated, and were moderately or strongly interested in
learn English for various reasons.
foreign languages and interacting with people from many
cultures, consistent with the findings in Liu’s [28] and Yang
et al.’s [43] studies. As a global lingua franca, the importance 3.2. Correlations among the Measured Variables and the
of English has been well realized by Chinese educators Students’ Performance. Correlational analyses revealed the
Education Research International 5

relationships between the students’ foreign language anxi- Table 4 shows that five of the measured variables were
ety, English learning motivation and their performance in included in the models in terms of performance in English—
English (see Table 3). foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCAS), intrinsic moti-
Table 3 shows that the FLCAS and its three sub- vation (IntrinM), instrumental motivation (InstruM), fear
scales were all significantly negatively correlated with the of being negatively evaluated (FLCAS1), and interest in
ELMS and its six dimensions except for InstruM and LR foreign languages and cultures (IFLC). Among these five
(r = −.155∼−.470, P < .01), as found in earlier studies [38, variables, FLCAS was the most powerful predictor of stu-
39]. Students who scored high on the FLCAS and its subscales dents’ performance in English (β = −.394, t = −4.63,
tended to score low on the ELMS and its subscales. Alterna- P = .000), followed by IntrinM (β = .141, t = 3.756,
tively, students who were more anxious in English language P = .000), InstruM (β = −.116, t = −3.615, P =
class, more fearful of being negatively evaluated (FLCAS1), .000), the FLCAS1 (β = .177, t = 2.189, P = .029), and
more apprehensive about public speaking (FLCAS2), and IFLC (β = .077, t = 2.162, P = .031). The FLCAS and
more anxious about tests (FLCAS3), tended to be less moti- InstruM were negative predictors, whereas the other three
vated to learn English intrinsically, instrumentally, and/or were positive ones. It is understandable that a more anxious
integratively. They had lower motivation intensity as well as respondent was more likely to perform worse in English;
less interest in foreign languages and cultures. Meanwhile, but a more instrumentally motivated respondent tended to
the FLCAS and its subscales were significantly positively perform worse in English as well might be because s/he had
related to LR, with coefficients ranging from .206 to .309 to worry about whether his/her goal could be achieved when
(P < .01). Namely, a more anxious student was more likely performing in the language. Meanwhile, the respondent
to be motivated by language requirement to learn English. who was more intrinsically motivated, more interested in
Finally, all the scales except for InstruM were signifi- foreign languages and cultures, and/or more fearful of
cantly related to the students’ performance in English, with negative evaluation were more inclined to do better in the
coefficients ranging from −.317 to .279 (P < .05), though English exam. Unexpectedly, as happened in Liu and Zhang
the coefficients were not high. Among the variables, the [21], the FLCAS1 became a positive predictor but InstruM
FLCAS and its three subscales were all significantly negatively became a negative one for the students’ performance in
correlated with the latter (r = −.247∼−.317, P < .05), as English, contrary to the results of correlational analyses.
found in numerous existing studies [2, 10, 13, 16, 21, 54]. This might be because when working alone, the FLCAS1
The ELMS and its subscales except for LR and InstruM were could negatively affect students’ performance in English
all positively correlated with the latter, with a coefficient and InstruM boosted the latter, while when interweaving
range of .072 to .152 (P < .05), consistent with that in Liu with other variables, their influence on the latter became
[38], while LR was significantly negatively related to the latter complicated. In the present study, anxiety proved to be the
(r = −.294, P < .01). In other words, the more a student most influential factor affecting the students’ performance
worried about the English language class, the worse s/he in English, which was probably because the language was
performed in English. By contrast, the more motivated s/he scarcely used outside the language class in their daily life
was intrinsically, integratively and/or by interest in foreign though they were usually motivated to learn it. In spite
languages and cultures, the better s/he performed in English. of this, the fear of being negatively evaluated motivated
However, if a respondent was more motivated by language them to overcome a certain degree of anxiety and impelled
requirement, s/he tended to perform worse in English or vice them to perform better in the exam. Contrary to this,
versa. instrumentally motivated students might constantly relate
The analyses so far clearly support the conclusion that their performance to their learning purposes; this might
foreign language anxiety and English learning motivation aggravate their feeling of anxiety, which resulted in poorer
were closely related to each other and the students’ perfor- performance in the exam. All these explanations, however,
mance in English. needs to be further validated with qualitative data such as
interview and journal reports.
3.3. The Regression Model. The results of the correlational
analyses discussed previously show numerous bivariate rela- 4. Conclusions and Implications
tionships, which could not indicate the influence of one
variable on another. Better clues were provided by multiple Several conclusions can be warranted from the present
regression analyses. A stepwise method was employed in study of the relationship between students’ foreign language
forming regression models. Altogether 5 models resulted anxiety, English motivation, and performance in English.
with the change in R2 being all significant: .100 for model 1 First, the analyses exposed that the respondents generally
(FLCAS) (P = .000), .022 for model 2 (FLCAS and IntrinM) did not feel anxious in English class, fearful of being
(P = .000), .007 for model 3 (FLCAS, IntrinM, and InstruM) negatively evaluated, or apprehensive about both speaking
(P = .005), .005 for model 4 (FLCAS, IntrinM, InstruM, and and tests. Meanwhile, the majority of the participants were
FLCAS1) (P = .025), and .004 for model 5 (FLCAS, IntrinM, moderately or even strongly motivated to learn English. They
InstruM, FLCAS1, and IFLC) (P = .031). The results are reported to have a moderate or even strong motivation inten-
summarized in Table 4, which reports coefficients from the sity, be moderately or strongly instrumentally motivated, and
regression models as well as their levels of significance. As be moderately or strongly interested in foreign languages and
can be seen, all the coefficients were statistically significant. interacting with people from many cultures, though they
6 Education Research International

Table 3: Correlations among the measured variables and performance (N = 980).

Variable FLCAS2 FLCAS3 FLCAS SOM IntrinM LR InstruM IntegM IFLC ELMS Performance
FLCAS1 .739∗∗ .510∗∗ .925∗∗ −.325∗∗ −.363∗∗ .273∗∗ .046 −.140∗∗ −.212∗∗ −.214∗∗ −.260∗
FLCAS2 1 .468∗∗ .863∗∗ −.342∗∗ −.435∗∗ .263∗∗ −.061 −.214∗∗ −.264∗∗ −.314∗∗ −.260∗
FLCAS3 1 .631∗∗ −.253∗∗ −.320∗∗ .206∗∗ −.095∗∗ −.155∗∗ −.209∗∗ −.248∗∗ −.247∗
FLCAS 1 −.398∗∗ −.470∗∗ .309∗∗ −.017 −.210∗∗ −.286∗∗ −.317∗∗ −.317∗
SOM 1 .483∗∗ −.345∗∗ .169∗∗ .352∗∗ .452∗∗ .577∗∗ .213∗
IntrinM 1 −.363∗∗ .174∗∗ .595∗∗ .483∗∗ .717∗∗ .279∗
LR 1 .149∗∗ −.220∗∗ −.285∗∗ −.185∗∗ −.294∗
InstruM 1 .362∗∗ .339∗∗ .641∗∗ −.050
IntegM 1 .577∗∗ .869∗∗ .143∗
IFLC 1 .723∗∗ .182∗
ELMS 1 .166∗
Note: ∗∗ P < .01; ∗ P < .05.

Table 4: Regression coefficients and significance. working on a particular task. Meanwhile, (over)emphasizing
learning English for utilitarian purposes may result in (extra)
FLCAS IntrinM InstruM FLCAS1 IFLC pressure and anxiety in the learners, which may ultimately
β −.394 .141 −.116 .177 .077 debilitate their performance in English, as found in the
Performance t −4.63 3.756 −3.615 2.189 2.162 present study. On the contrary, intrinsic motivation and
in English P .000 .000 .000 .029 .031 interest in foreign languages and cultures proved to be
VIF 8.174 1.592 1.157 7.396 1.446 positive predictors of students’ performance in English, as
predicted by Gardner and his associates [5, 27, 35]. Thus,
enhancing learners’ interest in English and its culture is
were only moderately intrinsically as well as integratively more important to promote their learning of the language.
motivated to learn English. Language requirement did not With a better knowledge of the language and its culture, the
constitute a great motivation for them to learn English either. learners may not feel so foreign and strange when using the
Secondly, foreign language anxiety and English learning language. Consequently, it is less likely for them to become
motivation were significantly negatively correlated with each anxious and fidgeted then. Likewise, it is beneficial to boost
other. For example, a more anxious respondent tended learners’ overall motivation to learn the target language.
to be less intrinsically motivated but more motivated by Promoting students’ awareness of the importance of English,
language requirement. Finally, both foreign language anxiety enhancing students’ interest in English, developing their
and English learning motivation were significantly corre- self-confidence, fostering their positive attitudes towards
lated with students’ performance in English. Among the English, praising them/giving positive feedback, analyzing
scales, foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCAS), intrinsic reasons for poor/good performance in English, fostering
motivation (IntrinM), instrumental motivation (InstruM), their intrinsic motivation in English by encouraging them
fear of being negatively evaluated (FLCAS1), and interest in to read English literary works, watching English films, and
foreign languages and cultures (IFLC) proved to be powerful making friends with international students on campus, and
predictors for the latter. so forth are suggested to be good ways to enhance students’
As such, for the purpose of bettering students’ perfor- English learning motivation [33, 38, 59, 60] . With enhanced
mance in English, it is necessary for language teachers as well motivation to learn English, students may become more
as learners to take measures to alleviate anxiety levels, since willing and active to use the language in various situations,
anxiety turned out to be the most powerful and negative which may in return result in lower anxiety in English
predictor for the students’ performance in English. Setting learning.
realistic and achievable goals, building a relaxing classroom Finally, since the present study was positioned in a typical
environment, sharing language learning experiences and EFL context, the findings and implications can be generalized
feelings, providing more chances to learners to use the to other similar EFL contexts in the country, in Asia or even
language, encouraging and praising learners often, and so on, other parts of the world. However, it might also be probable,
have been recommended to be effective in reducing anxiety for example, that students may be less anxious when speaking
levels [12, 14, 38, 55–58]. Nevertheless, as the analyses English at institutions where students generally have (much)
showed that fear of being negatively evaluated might become less access and exposure to the language and are not
a positive predictor of performance in English in the present motivated to learn it, since they are not expected to be highly
study, language teachers and learners had better be cautious competent in the language. Thus, investigations in a variety
when trying to cope with anxiety. It may be conducive to of settings with students who have differing backgrounds
learning if learners are kept under certain pressure when are urgently needed to better understand the relationship
Education Research International 7

between anxiety, motivation, and performance in the target [17] V. D. Sellers, “Anxiety and reading comprehension in Spanish
language and offer context-appropriate advice. as a foreign language,” Foreign Language Annals, vol. 33, no. 5,
pp. 512–520, 2000.
[18] J. X. Yan and E. K. Horwitz, “Learners’ perceptions of how
Acknowledgment anxiety interacts with personal and instructional factors to
influence their achievement in English: a qualitative analysis
The present study was sponsored by Asia Research Center in of EFL learners in China,” Language Learning, vol. 58, no. 1,
Tsinghua University in 2010. pp. 151–183, 2008.
[19] M. Liu and J. Jackson, “Reticence and anxiety in oral English
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