Abstract
This study intends to provide a wider range of insights into the strategy use by EFL learners with different levels of language anxiety and self-rated competence. The participants included university freshmen sampled from different English proficiency levels. The findings revealed that the most frequently used strategy category among low-anxiety students was metacognitive. Similarly, metacognitive strategies, followed by cognitive and compensation strategies, were used most frequently by students with the highest level of self-rated proficiency. Social strategies were the least used, regardless of anxiety or self-rated proficiency level. Language anxiety seems to have a greater influence on the strategy use frequency rather than on strategy choice. The results demonstrated significant effects of language anxiety and perceived competence on learning strategy use. In addition, self-perceived competence was shown to have a stronger link to strategy use than the learner’s actual language proficiency. Among anxiety and perceived and actual competence, perceived competence was identified to be the best predictor of strategy use. Nonetheless, the effect of anxiety on language learning cannot be ignored as it was found to have a similar level of association with strategy use as actual proficiency did, although its effect was significantly negative.
Highlights
Krashen (1987) suggested that most affective variables in language acquisition research can be placed into one of three categories: motivation, anxiety, and self-confidence
Regardless of the target language, similar conclusions concerning the prevalence of language anxiety have been made by researchers in studies undertaken in Western foreign language classrooms (Aida, 1994; Horwitz, et al, 1986; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994; Marcos-Llinás & Garau, 2009; Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999; Wu, 2011) and in the Asian EFL setting of Japan (Williams & Andrade, 2008) and Taiwan (Chan & Wu, 2004; Jen, 2003; Liu, 2010b)
The aim of this study, is to provide more insight into the language learning strategy use (LLSU) of EFL learners, its relations to foreign language anxiety and self-rated language proficiency, since both these variables can have some important effects on leaner motivation (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Liu, 2010a)
Summary
Krashen (1987) suggested that most affective variables in language acquisition research can be placed into one of three categories: motivation, anxiety, and self-confidence. To lower the affective filter, teachers must help students lower their anxiety levels (Krashen, 1989). Dӧrnyei (2001) indicated that lowering student language anxiety, in addition to teaching useful learning strategies, is one of the many strategies that can promote motivation in the classroom. According to Dӧrnyei, the application of these two motivational strategies can benefit learners’ self-confidence and eventually help improve their learning effectiveness. There is still very limited investigation into the strategy use of EFL learners in relation to language anxiety and self-rated proficiency. This study intends, to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between these variables and provide useful implications for language instructors and researchers in this area
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