One cohort or two?

Abstract

Foreign language anxiety and enjoyment have been shown to correlate with each other (Botes et al., 2022), but few studies to date have considered whether distinct groups of learners within the one class may experience these variables differently. This article considers whether learners who have arrived in Australian university intermediate language classrooms via two different pipelines, either having studied the language at university the year before or entering directly from high school, report diverse levels of enjoyment, anxiety, or out-of-class study behaviours. The study draws on data from 141 students studying at an Australian university who allowed their questionnaire data to be matched to their final grade for the unit. While there was no significant difference in the final grades awarded to students from each pipeline, the two groups reported differences in their experience of anxiety, and study behaviours. When it came to final grades only Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) was clearly predictive of performance.