The Influence of General Emotional Distress on FL Anxiety: a Study of First-year Chinese High School Students

Foreign language anxiety has been receiving increasing attention in the literature of psychology and second language learning. And many focus on the relationship between FL anxiety and achievement. However, few studies have researched the relationship between general emotional distress and FL anxiety. The present study recruited 600 first-year Chinese high school students aged 14 to 16 to complete the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS, Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (S. H. Lovibond & P. F. Lovibond, 1995). FL anxiety and stress and anxiety were found higher, while depression was lower among the participants than previous studies regarding different age groups. Factor analysis was also conducted on FLCAS and found five components of FL anxiety: unconfidence of English learning, anxiety from teachers and peers, fear of proactive and passive speaking, negative self-consciousness of speaking ability, and attitudes towards language classroom. Correlation and regression analysis found an inverse relationship between some components of FL anxiety and achievement. Furthermore, the present study also revealed a linkage influence of factors of general emotional distress on components of FL anxiety and a linkage influence of factors of FL anxiety on FL achievement through these methods.