Researchers have agreed that language anxiety is situation-specific; however, whether existing instruments measure stable or transient components of this anxiety remains controversial. Therefore, this study examined language anxiety's trait stability and state variability. The results from synthesizing 21 test-retest correlations based on existing…

This paper examines evidence for relationships among individual differences (IDs) in L1 achievement, L2 aptitude, and L2 achievement. It begins by providing an overview of my academic journey from L1 educator to L2 researcher and explains the development of the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH). Next, I review Peter Skehan's…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations between emotions, classroom environment, and willingness to communicate (WTC) using the advanced quantitative methodological procedure of doubly latent multilevel analysis. To this end, 1528 secondary school students from 65 different classrooms in Iran participated in the study.…

Much of applied linguistics research has been concerned with classroom-based second language (L2) development as it offers an ideal setting for examining the institutional ecology of L2 learning and teaching. However, scholars have continued to call for greater attention to the operationalization of constructs, selection of valid assessments, and…

Due to its influential nature on foreign language learning process, foreign language anxiety has been the focus of numerous studies in the literature of second language acquisition. In addition to its validation as a separate construct in late 80s, the last two decades have also witnessed the confirmation of skill-based anxieties as independent…

The last three decades have witnessed a notable growth in research on affect. Among the various affective variables, foreign language anxiety has been heavily studied. This interest in foreign language anxiety is consistent with increased attention to emotions in the neurosciences, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences. Instead of…

The possibility that anxiety interferes with language learning has long interested scholars, language teachers, and language learners themselves. It is intuitive that anxiety would inhibit the learning and/or production of a second language (L2). The important term in the last sentence is "anxiety". The concept of anxiety is itself multi-faceted,…

Previous research has devoted a great deal of attention to describing the long-term patterns and relationships among trait-level or situation-specific variables. The present discussion extracts kernels of wisdom, based on the literatures on language anxiety and language learning motivation, that are used to frame the argument that choosing to…

This study considered the effects of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI; Petrides & Mavroveli, 2007) and sociobiographical variables (age, gender, education level, number of languages known, age of onset of acquisition, context of acquisition, frequency of use, socialization, network of interlocutors, self-perceived proficiency) on…

Literature on foreign language anxiety shows a considerable amount of ambiguity arising from conflicting results of past studies. An attempt is made to show that these difficulties can be resolved given an awareness of the theoretical perspective from which this research has developed. (Author/VWL)

Examines perspectives from which foreign language anxiety research has been conducted, the instruments that have been used, and the results that have been reported. Three approaches to the study of anxiety are identified as trait, state, and situation specific perspectives. (68 references) (VWL)

Beginning foreign language (FL) courses in high school often have high numbers of learning disabled (LED) and at-risk students, perhaps because many students who are considered to be college bound begin foreign language study in middle school. This paper examines FL difficulties as well as effective strategies that others have used to conquer…

This investigation examines Thai college students' motivational goals for learning the English language. Thai student volunteers (N = 1387) from two types of educational institutions participated in this survey study which combined measures of goal orientations based on two different goal constructs and motivation models. Results of two-step…

This article responds to MacIntyre's (1995) critique of the Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH), which posits that language aptitude is the primary source of individual differences in foreign language (FL) achievement. It defends the LCDH and suggests that difficulties exist with theories that attribute affective and social context…