Does multilingualism affect foreign language classroom anxiety and foreign language enjoyment?

Abstract

Multilingual foreign language learners have been found to typically experience less Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) and more Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) than their less multilingual peers. Since most existing research was based on single databases, authors had to be careful to avoid sweeping generalisations about the positive effect of multilingualism. In order to increase validity, the current paper will investigate the link between the degree of multilingualism and two learner emotions using three different existing databases that contained relevant data but where multilingualism was not part of the research questions in the subsequent papers. Participants who contributed to the first database were 360 FL learners in a Kuwaiti university, the second database included data from 502 English Foreign Language (EFL) learners in secondary schools and universities in Morocco, and the third database included data from 181 pre-teen EFL learners in secondary schools in France. Separate statistical analyses of the three databases confirmed that multilingualism was linked to significantly higher FLE in all three databases and to lower FLCA in two out of the three databases. This suggests that knowing more languages contributes to more positive and fewer negative emotions in the FL class.