Although a considerable amount of research on the anxiety experienced by foreign and second language (L2) learners has accumulated over recent years, it appears that the anxiety experienced by L2 preservice teachers has been overlooked. To address this gap, this study investigated the anxiety encountered by preservice English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers during their final-year teaching practicum. Data were collected by having in-depth semi-structured interviews with nine Chinese preservice EFL teachers. Underpinned by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, this study identified four personal factors and nine contextual factors that influenced preservice EFL teacher anxiety at the personal and macro, exo, meso, micro, and chrono levels. Personal factors included self-perceived foreign language proficiency, self-efficacy, past experience, and self-positioning, and contextual factors comprised anxiety related to employment seeking, dissertation data collection, peer pressure, teaching practice, internship regulations, recruitment requirements, COVID-19 pandemic and network informatization. Additionally, preservice EFL teachers experienced persistent anxiety due to multitasking in the chronosystem. Implications for alleviating preservice English teacher anxiety were proposed to improve language teacher education in the post-pandemic era.