Investigating Foreign Language Anxiety and Learner Beliefs in Spoken Corrective Feedback With a Focus on Language Proficiency

Abstract

Research on the role of language proficiency on foreign language anxiety and learner corrective feedback beliefs in oral practice has not reached conclusive results. This study investigates whether level of proficiency affects foreign language anxiety and learner beliefs about spoken corrective feedback in an EFL context. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling. A total of 204 participants, who were all tertiary level university learners of English from four different proficiency groups, responded to two scales: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) and Corrective Feedback Belief Scale (Fukuda, 2004). A series of one-way ANOVA analyses and Bonferroni adjusted post-hoc corrections were run to test significance between and within groups. The four proficiency groups were statistically different from each other in terms of foreign language anxiety and spoken corrective feedback preferences. The findings revealed that the learners with a low proficiency level appreciated immediate feedback, but those with a higher level of language proficiency preferred delayed feedback. Clarification requests, elicitation and metalinguistic feedback were rated more positively by the beginner group than the other groups. In terms of the choice of correctors, language proficiency did not play a role; however, all the groups valued teachers as the main agents of correction. This study is one of the very few comprehensive studies (e.g., Tercan & Dikilitaş, 2016;Uyanıker, 2018) focusing on the role of language proficiency in anxiety and feedback preferences of high achiever tertiary level learners of English who will pursue their undergraduate studies in an English medium public university in Turkey.