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The Effect of Perception of Teacher Characteristics on Spanish EFL Learners’ Anxiety and Enjoyment
Author(s) -
DEWAELE JEAN–MARC,
MAGDALENA ANDREA FRANCO,
SAITO KAZUYA
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the modern language journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.486
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1540-4781
pISSN - 0026-7902
DOI - 10.1111/modl.12555
Subject(s) - psychology , stress (linguistics) , foreign language , foreign language anxiety , likert scale , context (archaeology) , anxiety , english as a foreign language , perception , variance (accounting) , mathematics education , developmental psychology , linguistics , paleontology , philosophy , accounting , neuroscience , psychiatry , business , biology
The present study explores the relationship between Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and a number of teacher‐centered variables within the Spanish classroom context. Participants were 210 former and current learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) from all over Spain who filled out an online questionnaire with Likert scale items. A moderate negative relationship emerged between FLE and FLCA. Participants who had an L1 English speaker as a teacher reported more FLE and less FLCA than those with a foreign language user of English. Teacher characteristics predicted close to 20% of variance in FLE but only 8% of variance in FLCA. The strongest positive predictor of FLE was a teacher's friendliness while a teacher's foreign accent was a weaker negative predictor. Teacher‐centered variables predicted much less variance for FLCA. Participants experienced more FLCA with younger teachers, very strict teachers, and teachers who did not use the foreign language much in class. The findings confirm earlier research that FLE seems to be more dependent on the teachers’ pedagogical skills than FLCA.