Predictors of Foreign-Language Anxiety: Examining the ...

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InstrumentsSelf-report instruments were used to collect data on first year English major participants’FLA, strength motivation, L2-self-concept, perfectionism, and competitiveness,whereas standardised tests were used to measure their L2 proficiencyand foreign language aptitude.The anxiety measureAnxiety was operationalised by the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) (Horwitz et al., 1986), translated into the participants’ native Hungarianand adapted for use in the university EFL classroom. The Hungarian version ofthe FLCAS (HFLCAS), checked through back-translation, tested for response andconstruct validity as well as reliability, has shown to be both reliable (α = .93) andvalid (Tóth, 2007). The HFLCAS is a 33-item Likert-type scale with five possibleresponses ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. It is meant to assessthe degree of foreign language anxiety in the EFL classroom and in conversationwith native speakers of English. The items of the scale are reflective of thethree anxieties that are regarded as conceptually important aspects of FLA accordingto Horwitz et al.’s (1986) theory: communication apprehension, fear of negativeevaluation, and test anxiety.The proficiency measureA Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) practice test was used to measurethe participants’ L2 proficiency. It consisted of the following three papers: (1)Listening Comprehension, (2) Structure and Written Expression, and (3) ReadingComprehension.The language aptitude measureThe instrument to measure participants’ aptitude for learning a foreign languagewas the Hungarian Language Aptitude Test (HUNLAT) (Ottó, 2002). TheHUNLAT is based on Carroll’s four-component theory of language aptitude andhis Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) (Carroll & Sapon, 1959). It is madeup of four subtests designed to measure (1) phonetic coding ability (HiddenSounds), (2) inductive language learning ability (Language Analysis), (3) grammaticalsensitivity (Words in Sentences), and finally (4) rote learning ability (VocabularyLearning).130 UPRT 2007: Empirical studies in English applied linguistics
The measure of motivational and other learner characteristicsTo assess motivational and other learner characteristics associated with FLA, aself-report questionnaire was developed, composed of two sections. In the firstone, participants were asked to respond to 28 statements on a four-point Likertscalewith the anchors “strongly agree”/ “strongly disagree”. Items tapping intodifferent learner constructs were presented in a random order to the participants.The variables measured were as follows:Motivational characteristicsTen items were included to measure (1) the strength of participants’ desire and (2)the intensity of their effort to learn English, as well as (3) the extent to which theywere motivated to achieve good results in the current learning situation. The firsttwo of these constructs are based on Gardner’s (1985) notion of desire to learn the L2and motivational intensity, whereas the third one on Dörnyei’s (1994) concept ofneed for achievement.L2-related self-perceptionsTwo items assessed participants’ level of self-confidence in using English, twoitems perceived control over learning outcome, and three items perceived coursedifficulty/ ease of learning. Some of the items were adapted from Dörnyei, 1990;Gardner et al., 1997; Williams, Burden, and Lanvers, 2002, while others were constructedfor the present investigation.PerfectionismSeven items were designed to measure participants’ perfectionistic tendencies.Three of the items were adapted from Dörnyei (1990), the other four were writtenfor this study, based on recent literature on perfectionism (Gregersen & Horwitz,2002).Tóth, Zs. Predictors of foreign-language anxiety 131
Page 2 and 3: have been investigated, no previous
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Page 10 and 11: CompetitivenessTo assess how compet
Page 12 and 13: Table 1: Correlations between cogni
Page 14 and 15: large effect size. The estimated co
Page 16 and 17: As for the other significant predic
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Page 20 and 21: The findings concerning the non-sig
Page 22 and 23: ReferencesAida, Y. (1994). Examinat
Page 24 and 25: Horwitz, E. K. (1996). Even teacher
Page 26: Wine, J. D. (1982). Evaluation anxi

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