Article

Foreign Language Anxiety and Self-Efficacy: Intermediate Korean as a Foreign Language Learners

Min Jung Jee 1 ,
Author Information & Copyright
1The University of Queensland
*Corresponding Author : Lecturer (tenured/Assistant Professor), School of Languages and Cultures The University of Queensland 3rd Floor, Gordon Greenwood Building (#32), St. Lucia Qld 4072, Australia , E-mail: m.jee@uq.edu.au

ⓒ Copyright 2019 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jun 13, 2019 ; Revised: Jul 28, 2019 ; Accepted: Aug 15, 2019

Published Online: Aug 31, 2019

ABSTRACT

This study examined the foreign language anxiety (FLA) and foreign language (FL) self-efficacy of learners of intermediate Korean as a foreign language (KFL), in relation to four language skills (i.e., speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Forty-one KFL students, enrolled in Second-year and Third-year level Korean courses at a university in Australia, completed an online questionnaire. The findings suggested that these students had moderate levels of FLA (M=2.78), especially regarding speaking (M=3.16) and listening (M=3.09). The students also showed high levels of self-efficacy in listening (M=3.66) and speaking (M=3.36). Positive correlations were found between FLA and the four skill-specific anxieties, with negative correlations between FLA and levels of self-efficacy in the four specific skills. Speaking self-efficacy was found to be the best predictor of FLA, and a lack of knowledge of Korean was revealed to be the major source of anxiety across all four skills. The students also felt confident when performing routine class activities.

Keywords: Korean as a foreign language learners; foreign language anxiety; foreign language self-efficacy; individual learner differences; intermediate Korean language learners

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