An Exploration of Chinese English Language Learners’

Foreign Language Anxiety

Yichi Zhang1, *
1 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109, MI, US

*Yichi Zhang. Email: [email protected]

Abstract. Language anxiety is one of the challenges faced by many international

students, which will influence students’ transition to a new environment. This
article provides an overview of existing research focusing on the foreign lan-
guage anxiety (FLA) of Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners.
Many researchers talk about students’ FLA experience, factors influencing FLA,
especially psychological emotions related to FLA, and students’ own strategies
to cope with FLA. By reviewing previous studies, this article summarizes the
implications for teachers, students, and institutions and provides suggestions for
future studies.

Keywords: foreign language anxiety, English language learner, Chinese stu-

dents

1 Introduction

Anxiety is the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry as-
sociated with arousal of the nervous system [1]. Based on this notion, scholars widely
discussed a specific type of anxiety in the condition of language learning - foreign lan-
guage anxiety (FLA). FLA refers to the worry and negative reaction aroused when
learning or using a foreign language, which becomes reliably associated with the lan-
guage class, differentiated from other contexts. For many learners, foreign language
learning can be traumatic. In Worde’s study, almost half of the class reported experi-
encing debilitating anxiety levels in learning a second language [2].
As international students from China, Chinese students have also experienced diffi-
culty overcoming foreign language barriers. Afraid of mistakes and communication
failures, many students will keep silent and avoid conversations as much as possible.
Chinese students tend to be quieter than those from other countries in a cross-cultural
class [3]; they may also lock themselves in their room to avoid intercultural communi-
cation in a mixed-gender apartment where residents come from different parts of the
world. Under some circumstances, such foreign language anxiety negatively affects
their mental health [4].
This study has reviewed the existing literature on Chinese English as a Foreign Lan-
guage (EFL) learners’ FLA. The fundamental purpose is to explore the reasons for FLA

© The Author(s) 2022

A. Holl et al. (Eds.): ICHESS 2022, ASSEHR 720, pp. 1739–1747, 2022.
https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-494069-89-3_200
1740 Y. Zhang

and the strategies to cope with it. After synthesizing the past studies, the article con-
cludes with four themes frequently discussed in those studies: students’ FLA experi-
ence, factors related to FLA, FLA and other psychological emotions and strategies stu-
dents used to cope with FLA. Then the article comes up with implications for students,
teachers, and institutions and suggestions for future research.

2 Students’ FLA experience

Students are more likely to define their FLA experience and feelings about FLA nega-
tively. When students were asked to talk about their moments of FLA, several negative
words were frequently used by them to describe those moments, such as “awkward”,
“anxious,” “bad,” “helpless,” “frustrated,” “upset,” and “nervous” [5]. Some students
could convert negative feelings of anxiety into positive stimuli and regard anxiety as
their motivation before exams. Those students still got excellent scores even though
they thought FLA would negatively influence their academic performance [6]. FLA
mainly manifests in communication anxiety, including speaking and listening [5][7].

3 Factors related to FLA

There are many factors that influence or relate to student FLA. This study has divided
the factors mentioned in the previous studies into six categories: student-related factors,
cultural factors, psychological factors, and academic factors.

3.1 Student-Related Factors

Students who have stayed in America for a while or who are already in the middle of
their programs tend to have lower anxiety than those who have just come to America
[7][8]. Female students are less anxious than male students. Students in art programs
are more likely to have lower anxiety in communication than those in the science major.
One reason is that art students have more interactions with their classmates in the class
through group discussions and projects, presentations, and discussing topics in seminar
class formats, which helps them go through the process of acculturation [8]. In addition,
students’ English proficiency level, relative standing among peers, attitudes towards
English, and attitudes towards the teacher are all negatively related to their anxiety level
[9][10].

3.2 Cultural Factors

Chinese students are influenced by Confucianism culture, which places a high value on
self-images [7]. This influence can be reflected in the fact that students are afraid of
making mistakes and are unwilling to show their weaknesses. The in-class activities
such as group discussions, oral presentations, and Q&A will lead to their anxiety, giv-
ing students limited time to prepare [5][7]. When talking to native speakers, Chinese
 An Exploration of Chinese English Language Learners’ Foreign 1741

students cannot understand their jokes, topics and slang because they lack cultural
knowledge and conversational language [5][6][7]. Cultural differences in course organ-
ization, classroom activities, and approaches the instructors use to teach will affect stu-
dents’ adjustment to a new environment and influence their anxiety [7].

3.3 Psychological Factors

The experience of being asked to repeat something in a rude, mean, impatient or exag-
gerated tone and isolation makes Chinese students afraid that others cannot understand
them, fear of negative evaluation and making mistakes, which causes more anxiety
[5][6][7]. Some students show low self-confidence in speaking English and low self-
efficacy, leading to high-level speaking anxiety [11]. Students’ unwillingness to com-
municate can positively predict their FLA [12].

3.4 Academic Factors

Chinese students will meet some difficulties in adjusting to academic life in America.
They have to deal with some complex professional words, theories and terminologies,
which also increases the difficulty for them to express perspectives in academic lan-
guage and spend lots of time understanding the logic behind the words [7]. Students
also struggle with the reading materials because the reading load is very big and the in-
class reading gives them limited time to understand, and it takes them a long time to
check the grammar and vocabulary [6][10][11]. Assessment always means a lot for
Chinese students, which also gives students more anxiety. However, many students in-
dicate that the more accessible assessment criteria lower their anxiety and motivation
[13].
The research also indicates that the combination of students with English proficiency
levels can help reduce the anxiety of students with lower English proficiency levels
since students who are good at English can provide support for other students and re-
duce their embarrassment and active engagement [13]. The combination of interna-
tional students and native speakers can improve students’ communication mindset and
efficacy, even though it does not influence anxiety levels [14].
The academic factors can be teacher-related as well. The instructions given by some
professors are not well-organized and comprehensible, hindering students’ understand-
ing. Some students think their professors speak too fast because they are native speak-
ers, and it is hard for them to catch up with what they are talking about [7]. Instructors’
friendliness and joking are found to be negatively related to students’ FLA. In contrast,
teachers’ strictness and unpredictability positively predict students’ FLA [9].

4 FLA & other psychological emotions

Foreign language learning can be a complicated cognitive process in which various

psychological emotions intertwine to create the learning experience as a whole. Emo-
tional feelings have a strong influence on the learners’ second language acquisition.
1742 Y. Zhang

Research indicated that Chinese EFL learners tended more to encounter speaking prob-
lems due to psychological factors such as anxiety, fear of mistakes and unwillingness
to express themselves rather than linguistic factors like lack of vocabulary, pronuncia-
tion, insufficient knowledge of grammar rules, reading and oral presentation [11]. As a
specific type of inner feeling, FLA is also found to be connected with other kinds of
psychological emotions. Among all the emotions, we synthesized the current research
findings into three topics, motivation, unwillingness to speak, and foreign language en-
joyment [9][10][11][12][15].

4.1 Motivation

Fundamentally, motivation is the study of why people think and behave in their way
and what pushes or pulls people to start, sustain, and complete an activity [16]. The
degree of motivation is closely related to the students’ learning and achievement. It is
believed that in a well-designed learning environment where the learners are highly
motivated, they are more likely to perform better [17]. Therefore, it is essential to in-
vestigate the relationship between motivation, FLA and foreign language learning.
In terms of different kinds of motivation, researchers concluded that Chinese EFL
learners’ instrumental motivations are more dominant than their integrative motivations
[11]. Instrumental motivation, as a type of extrinsic motivation, refers to a practical or
pragmatic reason for language study, while integrative motivation refers to a favorable
attitude toward the target language community [18]. In other words, compared with a
wish to integrate, adapt to, or get familiar with a new culture, Chinese EFL learners are
more fascinated by the practical outcomes of foreign language learning, such as aca-
demic success or the convenience of daily communication. Their FLA is also tied with
such instrumental needs. For example, they might be anxious about their language per-
formance in front of others and worried about making mistakes [13].
In general, Chinese EFL learners embrace complicated feelings in terms of motiva-
tion levels. On the one hand, some of their emotions might be negatively related to their
motivation and engagement. Chinese learners are always nervous about using their sec-
ond language. Sometimes, they might feel a sense of cultural alienation, especially
when they are under intercultural circumstances such as exchange or international stu-
dents [10]. However, on the other hand, they could also be motivated to learn English
as a foreign language because of their inner passion, enthusiasm, and positive attitudes
to speaking the language effectively [10]. As a result, it is necessary for both the edu-
cators and students to mediate the relationship between FLA and motivation to boost
the learners’ study.

4.2 Unwillingness to Speak

As observed by the researchers, the unwillingness to speak is one of the common phe-
nomena among Chinese EFL learners. For the English classes supervised by the begin-
ner teachers, most students remained silent and reticent when the instructors required
them to respond to particular oral tasks [19]. However, the fact was that most of the
students were willing to participate in interpersonal conversations in their minds, but
 An Exploration of Chinese English Language Learners’ Foreign 1743

only that many of them did not like to risk using English in class [12]. Even though the
students bore an excellent intention to practice speaking, they were blocked by the in-
strumental factors we discussed above.
The EFL learners’ unwillingness to communicate and their FLA correlated signifi-
cantly with each other, while many predicting variables were shared between them as
well [12]. Both such unwillingness and FLA were correlated with the students’ self-
rated English proficiency and access to English. With a higher proficiency and broader
access to the language, they might perform a lower state of unwillingness to communi-
cate as well as FLA [12]. In addition, the lack of confidence among Chinese EFL stu-
dents was a serious threat to the development of their speaking skills and communica-
tive behavior in second language classes [10]. This echoes the affective filter hypothesis
that negative emotions might prevent sufficient language input [20].

4.3 Foreign Language Enjoyment

Foreign language enjoyment (FLE) refers to the positive emotions that learners feel
after overcoming learning difficulties, completing academic tasks, and realizing their
psychological needs during the process of foreign language learning [21]. FLE is the
most heavily studied research subject on FLL’s positive emotions [15]. Studies have
shown that FLE can serve as a facilitator to help the learners have a better acquisition
of a target foreign language [22][23]. Thus, it is beneficial for the students to cultivate
their FLE in pursuit of satisfactory learning outcomes.
The relationship between FLE and FLA has been widely discussed; however, the
results are mixed. Some scholars claim that FLE is significantly negatively correlated
with FLA, which means that the higher the learners’ FLE, the lower their FLA level
would be [24]. Meanwhile, other researchers argued that the relationship between FLE
and FLA was complicated. The positive and negative emotions might coexist in foreign
language learning processes with complex interaction, and it was possible that the
learners could have high levels of both FLE and FLA [25].
Existing research also investigated the comparison between Chinese students and
EFL learners from other countries. Results showed that the Chinese participants re-
ported similar levels of FLE but higher levels of FLA compared to the international
sample in Dewaele & MacIntyre’s study [24], which could be attributed to the Chinese
educational context [9]. The traditional Chinese culture particularly emphasizes “face”,
based upon a core concept of “honour”, resulting in pursuing satisfactory performances
and hiding their weaknesses [26]. Therefore, Chinese students might be more anxious
than learners from other cultures because they care more about conducting “perfect”
practices and others’ comments.

5 Students’ strategies to cope with FLA

Influenced by their emotions, experience and other factors discussed above, learners
develop different attitudes to cope with FLA. Some may actively address FLA and at-
tempt to use a wide range of learning strategies to facilitate their own foreign language
1744 Y. Zhang

learning. For example, the learners can make friends with native speakers, actively par-
ticipate in teamwork to communicate with others, or devote more time to practice on
their own extensively and intensively [5][8]. Overall, maximizing their exposure to the
English language both in and out of class is very helpful in overcoming FLA obstacles
[10]. In the meantime, other learners may negatively circumvent FLA as well. They
opted to avoid the anxiety-provoking situations, which may “serve to lower the anxiety
until they were able to confront it at a later date” [5]. However, by avoiding speaking,
they are just postponing the time to deal with the barriers, which would not release the
FLA but would extend the time of suffering from the nervousness instead. Therefore,
the learners should try to actively cope with FLA with the assistance of peers and teach-
ers to improve their language skills.

6 Implications

6.1 For Students

Students should keep in mind that there is no shame in making mistakes; instead, it is
a process of learning English. They should keep a positive mindset and challenge their
comfort zone [5]. Taking cross-discipline courses or courses that involve many peer
collaboration activities can help students get in touch with students and staff in different
disciplines and gain more opportunities to communicate with local people [8]. Students
should regard learning English as a lifelong process and keep practicing English by
socializing with native speakers, watching native English movies and attending in or
out of class activities [7][11]. Besides speaking and listening skills, teachers should also
pay more attention to students’ reading and writing skills, helping them with complex
grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation [10].

6.2 For Teachers

Teachers should always pay attention to students’ emotional needs and language chal-
lenges and create a friendly, relaxed, supportive, and inclusive atmosphere to reduce
isolation and discrimination [5][6][7][13]. It is necessary for teachers to provide student
guides that include the lesson plan and class materials, pay attention to their speaking
pace, and give some time for students to respond [9]. Language teachers should teach
English in a more student-centred way and design more exciting activities designed to
engage students to practice speaking English in class [13]. In order to improve students’
self-confidence and reduce their anxiety, teachers can gather more instructional strate-
gies, such as holding class debates and oral presentations and giving immediate feed-
back and encouragement [11][12]. Besides speaking and listening skills, teachers
should also pay more attention to students’ reading and writing skills, helping them
with complex grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation [10].
 An Exploration of Chinese English Language Learners’ Foreign 1745

6.3 For Institutions

Schools should provide students with more student-centred services and programs that
put students’ needs, learning styles and interests in the first place, and help them learn
more about American culture and life instead of focusing on academic performance [5].
Schools can hold workshops to provide tutorials for students, help them recognize their
FLA situations and build strategies to cope with such situations [27]. Peer programs
will be helpful to students’ process of acculturation and English improvement by
matching international students with local students or more experienced international
students [7]. Schools should give teachers more freedom in assessment [9].

7 Limitations and future research

After reviewing the articles, we identified the limitations of current research and further
provided some suggestions for future scholars. First, the research perspectives can be
expanded. As a combination of psychology and language learning, the issue of FLA
can be investigated across different disciplines, including psychology, neurolinguistics,
ecology, education, and perhaps even computer science. Meanwhile, rather than only
discussing FLA, the researchers may switch to considering the psychological emotions
as a whole to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the EFL learners’ minds.
Second, future studies can also enrich the research topics on FLA. Currently, the
existing research mainly focuses on the contributing factors of FLA instead of the in-
tervention strategies to deal with it; yet, exploring effective learning strategies might
be more beneficial for the students. Considering this, the researchers may focus more
on the intervention strategies in the future. Also, the relationship between FLA and
learning outcomes has not yet been sufficiently examined. It could also be a direction
for future research. Meanwhile, rather than only concentrating on a single group of EFL
learners, the comparison between different students might be interesting as well. The
scholars can compare diverse participants, for example, students from different soci-
ocultural backgrounds, students living inside and outside the language environment,
and students studying different disciplines.
Last, the innovation of research methods should be considered. The relevant research
at present is primarily qualitative. In the future, more quantitative and mixed methods
can be used to examine FLA-related topics. Furthermore, the audience and participants
can be extended. The subject groups in existing studies are mainly students in higher
education. Since early childhood is a crucial period for language development, espe-
cially oral speaking, perhaps we can pay more attention to primary school students re-
garding their FLA [28]. The FLA status of adolescent students at secondary school can
be investigated as well.

8 Conclusion

Most students have negative feelings when talking about their FLA moments, affecting
their mental health, social experience, and academic achievement. Therefore, it’s vital
1746 Y. Zhang

for students to keep a positive mindset, and teachers should also pay attention to stu-
dents’ emotional needs and consider their challenges, while institutions pay more at-
tention to international students’ transition, not just academic performance. For future
studies, we can use a mixed research method to explore FLA in different situations or
across different disciplines.

References
1. Spielberger, C. D. (1983). State-trait anxiety inventory for adults. Palo Alto, CA: Mind Gar-
den. DOI: 10.1037/t06496-000
2. Worde, R. A.. An investigation of students' perspectives on foreign language anxiety.
George Mason University, 1998.
3. Xie, X. (2010). Why are students quiet? Looking at the Chinese context and beyond. ELT
journal, 64(1), 10-20. DOI: 10.1093/elt/ccp060
4. Kasap, S. (2021). Mental Well-Being And Foreign Language Anxiety. Multicultural Educa-
tion, 7(4), 226-230. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4716343
5. Liao, Y., & Liang, J. (2021). Foreign language anxiety among Chinese graduate students in
the United States: A qualitative multi-case study. Journal of Research in Education, 30(2),
35-68.
6. Li, L. (2019). Reading Anxiety among Chinese Exchange Students in a Study-Abroad Con-
text. English Language Teaching, 12(9), 96-104. DOI: 10.5539/elt.v12n9p96
7. Zhao, Q. . An exploration of language anxiety in the L2 academic context for Chinese inter-
national students in U.S. universities, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2013.
8. Cheng, R., & Erben, A. (2012). Language anxiety: Experiences of Chinese graduate students
at U.S. higher institutions. Journal of Studies in International Education, 16(5), 477-497.
DOI: 10.1177/1028315311421841
9. Jiang, Y., & Dewaele, J. M. (2019). How unique is the foreign language classroom enjoy-
ment and anxiety of Chinese EFL learners? System, 82, 13-25. DOI: 10.1016/j.sys-
tem.2019.02.017
10. Malik, S., Qin, H., & Oteir, I. (2021). Perceived psychological, linguistic and socio-cultural
obstacles: An investigation of English communication apprehension in EFL learners. Inter-
national Journal of Instruction, 14(4), 733-752. DOI: 10.29333/iji.2021.14442a
11. Amoah, S., & Yeboah, J. (2021). The speaking difficulties of Chinese EFL learners and their
motivation towards speaking the English language. Journal of Language and Linguistic
Studies, 17(1), 56-69. DOI:10.3316/informit.220198786765725
12. Liu, M., & Jackson, J. (2008). An exploration of Chinese EFL learners' unwillingness to
communicate and foreign language anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, 92(1), 71-86.
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00687.x
13. Jing, H., & Junying, Z. (2016). A study on anxiety in Chinese EFL university students. Eng-
lish Language Teaching, 9(9), 179-184. DOI: 10.5539/elt.v9n9p179
14. Hingle, A., Davidson Mhonde, R., & Broeckelman-Post, M. (2022). To shelter or unshelter?
An analysis of international students’ experience in introductory communication courses.
Research in Comparative and International Education, 17(1), 89-106.
DOI:10.1177/17454999211059618
15. Yu, Q. (2021). A Review of Foreign Language Learners' Emotions. Frontiers in Psychology,
12, 827104-827104. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.827104
16. Roy, R., & Zaman, B. (2017). Why Gamification Fails in Education and How to Make It
Successful: Introducing Nine Gamification Heuristics Based on Self-Determination Theory.
 An Exploration of Chinese English Language Learners’ Foreign 1747

In M. Ma & A. Oikonomou (Eds.), Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 485-
509. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-51645-5_22
17. Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic mo-
tivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, learning, and instruction:
Cognitive and affective process analysis, 3, 223-253. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. DOI:
http://dx.doi.org/
18. Gardner, R. C. (1988). Attitudes and motivation. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 9,
135-148. DOI: 10.1017/S0267190500000854
19. Vallente, J. P. C. (2020). Sources of embarrassment or empowerment? Oral feedback strat-
egies in English language teaching classrooms. TESOL International Journal, 15(1), 31-52.
20. Krashen, S. (1982). Second language acquisition and second language learning. Oxford:
Pergamon Press.
21. Dewaele, J. M., MacIntyre, P. D., Boudreau, C., and Dewaele, L. (2016). Do girls have all
the fun? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom. Theory and Practice of
Second Language Acquisition, 2(1), 41-63.
22. Saito, K., Dewaele, J. M., Abe, M., & In'nami, Y. (2018). Motivation, emotion, learning
experience, and second language comprehensibility development in classroom settings: A
cross‐sectional and longitudinal study. Language Learning, 68(3), 709-743. DOI:
10.1111/lang.12297
23. Li, C. (2020). A positive psychology perspective on Chinese EFL students’ trait emotional
intelligence, foreign language enjoyment and EFL learning achievement. Journal of Multi-
lingual and Multicultural Development, 41(3), 246-263. DOI:
10.1080/01434632.2019.1614187
24. Dewaele, J. M., and MacIntyre, P. D. (2014). The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoy-
ment in the foreign language classroom. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teach-
ing, 4, 237-274. DOI: 10.14746/ssllt.2014.4.2.5
25. Boudreau, C., MacIntyre, P. D., and Dewaele, J. M. (2018). Enjoyment and anxiety in sec-
ond language communication: an idiodynamic approach. Studies in Second Language
Learning and Teaching, 1, 149-170. DOI: 10.14746/ssllt.2018.8.1.7
26. Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. H. . Intercultural communication: A discourse ap-
proach. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
27. Cheng, R., & Erben, A. (2012). Language anxiety: Experiences of Chinese graduate students
at U.S. higher institutions. Journal of Studies in International Education, 16(5), 477-497.
DOI: 10.1177/1028315311421841
28. Menyuk, P., & Brisk, M. E. . Language Development and Education. Houndmills, Basing-
stoke, Hampshire, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. DOI: 10.1057/978023050432

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/),
which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any
medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.