How different are the relations between enjoyment, anxiety, attitudes/motivation and course marks in pupils’ Italian and English as foreign languages?

Abstract

The present study tests the implicit assumption in most SLA research that sources of individual differences in the single foreign language (FL), typically English, of a learner apply to all other FLs of that learner. We thus investigated whether the values and relationships between the same learners’ classroom emotions, attitudes and motivation in two different FLs, namely Italian and English, were identical and whether they had a similar effect on course marks in both languages. Participants were 110 Turkish pupils in an Italian immersion school in Istanbul, Turkey. A positive relationship was found between FL Enjoyment (FLE) across the FLs but no relationship existed between levels of FL Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and attitudes/motivation in both FLs. Within-FL correlation analyses revealed that FLE and attitudes/motivation were positively correlated in both FLs. FLCA was negatively linked with FLE and with attitudes/motivation in both FLs. Multiple regression analyses showed that pupils with high FLCA had lower course marks in both FLs. Attitudes/motivation was a much stronger positive predictor of course marks in Italian than in English, where FLCA was the strongest (negative) predictor. FLE was not a significant predictor of course marks. We conclude that while broad similarities exist in the relationships between emotions, attitudes/motivation and course marks in the two FLs, it is unclear why the effect of attitudes/motivation on course marks was much stronger for the weaker FL, while FLCA was much stronger for the stronger FL. Differences could be linked to meso-level and macro-level differences between the FLs or to the effect of unseen mediating variables such as teaching style or assessment.