A study of the relationship between foreign language learning anxiety and language achievement level of Bangladeshi university students

Pages: 118-125
Fatema-Tu-Zohra Binte Zaman and Md. Abdus Shabur Pramanik Semul (Department of Psychology, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

English is a language used worldwide and almost in every sphere. Thus, knowledge of everyday English is a part and parcel of the modern life. However, students are very anxious about English language classes in Bangladesh. The present study is focused on investigating the relationship of student’s foreign language classroom anxiety and foreign language achievement. 125 undergraduate students were selected purposively from the capital of Bangladesh. Student’s anxiety level was measured by adapted version of foreign language classroom anxiety scale. The result indicated that most of the students were found to be anxious. With respect to gender no significant difference was observed between males and females on their English language classroom anxiety level. The study further showed a significant negative relationship between students’ English language classroom anxiety and English language achievement test result. The study also revealed that there was achievement test result variation among the subjects of the study with respect to their anxiety level. Finally it was found that though females’ achievement test result was a little bit higher than that of males, no significant difference was found on achievement between them. Findings of this study depicted that anxiety is prevalent among the subjects of the study and had negative correlations with their English language classroom anxiety and language achievement test result.