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This study considered true beginners and false beginners in first‐semester university French and Spanish classes to: (a) determine whether true beginners and false beginners differ in anxiety, grades, and plans to continue language study; and (b) identify classroom factors that foster anxiety or comfort. Students completed a questionnaire that included the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), MacIntyre and Gardner Anxiety Subscales (1989, 1994), demographic information, grade expectations, and open‐ended questions. Randomly selected students were interviewed about their experiences in the courses. Statistical analyses revealed that (a) although neither group was terribly anxious, true beginners were significantly more anxious overall and during processing and output stages than false beginners; (b) true beginners expected and received lower grades than false beginners; and (c) significantly more true beginners than false beginners planned to continue studying the language. Comments on one written open‐ended question and in the interviews pointed to the key role of the instructor in reducing anxiety.

Although first language (L1) and second language (L2) research has indicated that the meanings of unknown words can be derived from the contexts in which they occur, research has also found limitations to the value of context. Using data gathered in a classroom experiment on L2 vocabulary acquisition (Frantzen, 1998), the present study sought to determine some of the reasons why the context in which a word appears does not always lead a language learner to an accurate interpretation of its meaning. It expands the existing research by using a natural, intact, unmanipulated text as the context (an aspect underrepresented in current L2 word inferencing literature). Analysis of the students' answers, their self-reported guessing strategies, the contexts in which the words appeared, and the text's glossing revealed that the "blame" for the incorrect answers may be placed on: (a) the context itself, (b) the students' behavior, and in a minor way (c) the story's glossing. Numerous patterns are presented and discussed in light of other L1 and L2 research and new patterns are reported.MOST RESEARCH IN FIRST LANGUAGE (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary learning indicates that learners can derive the meaning of unknown words while reading by using the context in which they

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