Foreign Language Anxiety: A Review on Theories, Causes, Consequences and Implications for Educators

Anxiety has been considered one of the main obstacles in second language learning in instruction-based contexts. During the last few decades, many scholars have tried to shed light on different aspects of this phenomenon. This literature review clarifies previous scholarly works and covers some of the most significant empirical studies conducted in this field. The purpose of this literature review is to review various aspects of foreign language anxiety, its corresponding theoretical frameworks and models, causes, consequences, gender differences, class modalities (face-to-face and online) and lastly, implications for educators. Foreign language anxiety is a significant barrier that hinders the learning a foreign language. Acknowledging different aspects of foreign language anxiety and the ways it affects the learning process, helps the educators adopt the best approach in providing the students with the most appropriate techniques to mitigate the anxiety level