Foreign Language Enjoyment, Foreign Language Anxiety, and Achievement in an EFL Course at a Korean University

Abstract

This study aims to discover if there are relationships among Korean university students’ emotions of foreign language anxiety (FLA), foreign language enjoyment (FLE), and foreign language achievement and if those relationships were affected by gender. The 456 participants completed shortened versions of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS) and the foreign language enjoyment scale (FLES). Correlation analyses show that FLE is significantly and positively correlated with foreign language achievement and that FLA is significantly and negatively linked to foreign language achievement. Multiple regression analyses further revealed that FLE exerts a stronger influence on foreign language achievement than FLA, and, interestingly, the effect of FLE is greater for male students, which suggests that male students earned much lower grades when their FLE is low while the difference is much smaller for female students. The results of this study bear important implications for English education, suggesting that to improve foreign language achievement, English as a foreign language (EFL) instructors should strive to lower the FLA and increase the FLE of their students and that the role of FLE can be significantly more important for male students in Korea.