Factors Influencing Chinese Language Learning Anxiety in the Classroom Setting.
This study investigated the foreign language anxiety (FLA) construct of U.S. college learners of Chinese as a foreign language (N 149) and examined whether the following factors, gender, language class level, and whether foreign language(s) were learned prior to learning Chinese, had significant influences on the learners' anxiety levels. A modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was used to collect data. The results of the factor analysis illustrated a 4 component solution including Chinese class performance anxiety, the lack of mastery of all four language skills, writing Chinese characters, and learner confidence. The results of the MANOVA test showed that a significance was found in the independent variable of gender on the learners' anxiety. The male learners were less anxious than the females when performing their Chinese language skills in class or when they had not fully mastered all four language skills. Foreign language anxiety (FLA) is considered one of the key affective factors influencing learners' language learning. The widely cited definition of FLA is "a distinct complex set of selfperceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process" (Horwitz, Horwitz, Cope, 1986, p. 128) This anxiety, developed from the process of learning a foreign language, is considered a situationspecific anxiety, distinctive from other types of anxieties such as trait or state anxieties. An adequate amount of FLA could help learners to challenge themselves and make improvements. However, a high level of FLA is seen as a negatively affecting factor, which distracts learners' attention and impedes their cognitive capacity (Zhao Whitchurch, 2011) FLA might be in reciprocal paths with other learning factors such as a learner's motivation and perceived competence. For instance, Sultan (2012) found that college learners of English with low perceived competence also felt more anxious compared to their peers. Dewaele's (2005) study concluded that highly motivated students had very low anxiety and vice versa. Depending on the severity of a learner's FLA and its interactive effect with other affective factors, the additive effect of the factors could have a critically negative outcome on the learner's learning process and performance (Aida, 1994; Malallah, 2000) Despite other affective factors that have interactive effects with FLA, the difficulty level of a foreign language could also account for a learner's anxiety level. Taking Mandarin Chinese as an example, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies, which has been teaching 65 languages to U.S. diplomats for 70 years, considered Mandarin a "super hard language for native speakers of English" placing it at Category IV (U.S. Department of State, 2018) Compared to languages placed at Category I, Mandarin Chinese takes triple the time for an adult learner to master. Indeed, the difficulty of Chinese has been reflected in the high dropout rate in Chinese courses at the college level (Luo, 2013) More importantly, researchers (Bailey, Onwuegbuzie Factors Influencing Chinese Language Learning Anxiety 2 Daley, 2003; Gardner, Moorcroft, MacIntyre, 1987) have found a positive correlation between high dropout rates and high level of FLA. Zhao and Whitchurch (2011) explained that for native speakers of alphabetic languages such as English, Chinese language learning could be a highly anxious task, especially in the area of Chinese character learning. Sung and Wu (2011) identified a few Chinese learning challenges such as the large number of Chinese characters to be learned in order to be functional in a Chinese speaking community, the extensive time needed to master literacy skills as Chinese characters and their pronunciations have no correlation, and the large number of Chinese homophones making it difficult for learners to recall the correct characters and their meanings. Although current literature has pinpointed the profound influence of FLA on language learning and achievement, little research has been conducted to gain understanding on the anxiety experienced by native English speakers learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) FLA, as Liu (2018) stated, "is a complex construct and most of the studies on FLA focuses on English as a foreign language/English as a second language learners, with little literature found on learners of other languages as a second or foreign language, even less on learners of Chinese as a second language/Chinese as a foreign language" (p. 56) Considering that the Chinese language has distinctive features and that it is more challenging to learn than most other languages in the world, the current study on the Chinese language learning anxiety of native English speakers is necessary to contribute important information that is currently lacking in the field. More information regarding CFL students' learning anxiety in the classroom will offer policy makers, administrators, and classroom instructors new insights and aid them in creating a suitable CFL learning environment and in developing effective CFL teaching strategies that decrease students' anxiety. Hence, this study intends to understand more about language learning anxiety by investigating components of anxiety possessed by college native English speaking students learning CFL and looking into potential factors which influence students' anxiety. The research questions included in this study are: 1. What components of anxiety do native English speaking college students who learn CFL in the United States possess? 2. Do U.S. college students' anxiety level differ based on the following learner differences: (a) gender, (b) language class level, and (c) whether other foreign languages were learned prior to learning Chinese? Theoretical Framework Horwitz et al. (1986) stated that FLA was derived from the construct of three performance anxieties: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. Communication apprehension refers to anxiety communicating with others, which includes speaking one on one, in a small group, or public speaking. When applying the concept of communication apprehension in foreign language learning, one can imagine that individuals who already have communication anxiety in their native language would probably encounter even more anxiety in a second language they have not fully mastered. Since most foreign language classes use certain rubrics to evaluate student progress and performance, test anxiety is a relevant type of anxiety to include in FLA. Test anxiety is related to the worry of failure. In the context of foreign language learning, it is almost impossible to make absolutely no language error in all tests. Hence, it is likely that foreign language students might have a certain level of test anxiety. Factors Influencing Chinese Language Learning Anxiety 3 Fear of negative evaluation is a type of anxiety that one feels in a social evaluative situation such as speaking in a job interview or in a foreign language. In applying fear of negative evaluation in the foreign language classroom, students might feel anxious when speaking in front of fluent speakers, the teacher, or be anxious about what their peers think of their language production in class. This study adopted the FLA scale developed by Horwitz et al. (1986) as the data collection instrument, which followed the theoretical construct of the three component anxiety model described above. The theoretical model was used in this study to conceptualize the findings and is referred to later in this study to help interpret the study results. Empirical Literature Review FLA studies have flourished for over the past three decades with the seminal piece conducted by Horwitz et al. (1986) The researchers created and tested the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) a 33 item anxiety survey, based on the three foreign anxiety component model mentioned in the Theoretical Framework section. The pilot study using the FLCAS with 75 college beginning Spanish students reported that several kinds of FLA were found. Some students rated high on speech anxiety, some feared that they were not as competent as their peers, while others were afraid of making language mistakes. More importantly, some of them felt more anxious in their language classes than in their other classes, which supported Horwitz et al.'s claim that FLA is a unique type of anxiety in response to foreign language learning. Many recent studies adopted Horwitz et al.'s (1986) FLCAS scale to expand the anxiety research scope in different learning contexts. The results of these studies have demonstrated that different constructs of FLA exist in different contexts. For example, Thompson and Lee (2013) identified the anxiety component of fear of ambiguity in English by Korean learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) which is related to the level of tolerance an individual has toward ambiguous situations (e.g. not feeling sure of oneself when speaking a target language) This factor was not found in the original FLA study by Horwitz et al. however, the same component was also identified in the context of EFL learners in Turkey (Thompson Khawaja, 2016) Hence, Thompson and Khawaja (2016) pointed out that the finding of the factor illustrated the importance of context and cultural implications regarding FLA. This implication suggests the need to look into new contexts such as Chinese language learning, that are still in need of more anxiety research. Moreover, the current literature reported inconsistent findings on the relationship between FLA and other variables; hence, this study included three that were suggested as in need of more research by the literature. The following sub sections offer an in depth discussion of each variable and its relationship with FLA. FLA and Multilin