The anxiety-proficiency relationship and the stability of anxiety:The case of Chinese university learners of English and Japanese

Adopting a longitudinal design, this study investigates the effects of foreignlanguage anxiety on foreign language proficiency over time within English andJapanese learning contexts. It also explores the stability of anxiety in Englishand Japanese over time and the stability of anxiety across English and Japanese.Chinese university students (N = 146), who were simultaneously learningJapanese and English, participated in this study. Data were collected twiceover a 2-month interval, using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale,the English Proficiency Scale, and the Japanese Proficiency Scale. Resultsshowed that anxiety changes had a significantly negative, but weak, correlationwith the development of overall proficiency and the proficiency in subskillssuch as reading or speaking, for both English and Japanese, suggestingthe interference of anxiety with proficiency levels. Anxiety in Japanese tendedto decrease significantly over time, but no significant change was found forEnglish. Furthermore, no significant difference between anxiety in Japaneseand English was found at either testing time.