Foreign Language Anxiety and Foreign Language Performance: A Meta‐Analysis
Abstract
This meta‐analysis investigated the relationship between foreign language (FL) anxiety and FL performance. Fifty‐five independent samples with more than 10,000 participants were surveyed. It was found that the overall correlation between FL anxiety and FL performance was −.34 (p < .01). FL listening anxiety had the strongest correlation with FL listening performance. Both FL reading anxiety and test anxiety had a weaker correlation with FL performance as compared to other types of anxiety. The anxiety–performance correlation remained stable across groups with different FL proficiency levels, suggesting that the role of FL anxiety should not be ignored regardless of the FL learners’ proficiency level. As compared to language family, lexical similarity was found to have a more decisive modulating effect on the anxiety–performance correlation. However, language family and lexical similarity may interact to affect the anxiety–performance correlation. Finally, a metaregression analysis showed that age could affect the correlation between FL anxiety and performance.
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“Whilst earlier studies argued that some anxieties may have a facilitating effect on performance (Alpert & Haber, 1960; Scovel, 1978), recent studies revealed an overall negative correlation between FLCA and achievement (Botes et al., 2020; Teimouri et al., 2019; Zhang, 2019).”
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Exploring the effects of Grammarly on EFL students’ foreign language anxiety and learner autonomy
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- Authors
- ZHANG, X.
- Affiliations
- University of North Texas (US)
- Corresponding author
- ZHANG, XIAN
- ORCID
- ZHANG, XIAN
- Venue
- The Modern Language Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-10
- Volume
- 103
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 763-781
- ISSN
- 0026-7902 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-4781
- OpenAlex
- W2978685979
- Cited by
- 346
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 52 · 2025: 70 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 96.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Modern Language Journal (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities in P. R (17JJD740004)
- National Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Communication in Education and Healthcare
- Keywords
- foreign language anxiety, listening anxiety, reading anxiety, test anxiety, language proficiency, language families, word similarity, age effects, second language acquisition
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