LEARNING

Language anxiety is a prevalent phenomenon in second language learning. This experiment examines the arousal ol anxiety caused by the introduction of a video camera at various points in a vocabulary learning task. Seventy-two students of l sfyear university French were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (a) one group who had anxiety aroused during their initial exposure to the stimuli, (b) a second group who had anxiety aroused when they began to learn the meanings of the words, (c) a third group who had anxiety aroused when they were asked to produce the French word (when prompted with the English), and (d) a control group who did not experience anxiety arousal. Significant increases in state anxiety were reported in all three groups when the video camera was introduced, and concomitant deficits in vocabulary acquisition were observed. lt is concluded that the stage at which anxiety arises has implications for any remedial action taken to reduce the efJects of language anxiety. This relearch has been supported by the Social Science and Humanities Res€arch Council of Canada with Doctoral Fellowship No.?52-91-12?? to the fiIst author and Crant No. 41G900195 to the second author. We would like to expr€ss our thank to V. Galbraith, D. Mellamphy, and the Department of French at the U0iversity ol Western Ontario lor their assistance in completing the project and to the aDonymous reviewers for their valuable comments