The main aim of this study is to investigate Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in relation to the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. A total of 75 prospective primary school teachers at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) took part in this study. A small questionnaire that included the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz et al., 1986) was used to collect data. The results of this study show that most participants experience average and high anxiety levels in the language classroom. Communication apprehension was reported to be the main source of FLA, followed by fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety. The findings also revealed the strong association between FLA, motivation, language proficiency and degree of self-confidence. Furthermore, the data indicate that the primary source of speaking anxiety is related to participants’ lack of English proficiency. This may have potential adverse effects on the confidence levels of L2 teachers, their target language use, and their instructional competence (Horwitz, 1996).

In the past decades, there has been a growing interest in the effects of language tests, especially high-stakes tests, on teaching and learning referred to as 'washback'. In fact, high-stakes tests have started to be exploited to reform instruction and achieve beneficial washback. This paper focuses on the washback effects of a high-stakes English Test (ET) on the teaching of English. The main goal of this study is to examine the washback effects of the ET on the following aspects of teaching: curriculum, materials, teaching methods, and teaching feelings and attitudes. The study also attempts to discover teachers' perceptions towards the introduction of a speaking and a listening component in the design of the new ET due to be implemented in 2012.The overall findings, collected from a questionnaire carried out among 51 secondary teachers, indicate that the ET is clearly affecting curriculum and materials. Results also reveal that the ET appears to influence teachers' methodology. Furthermore, most of the teachers believe that the introduction of a speaking and a listening component in the new ET design will help solve the mismatch between the communicative approach they seem to value and the skills so far evaluated in the ET.

ABSTRACT. This study investigated the level of inter-rater and intra-rater reliability of thirty-two raters in the evaluation of the composition subtest of the English Test (ET) in the Spanish University Entrance Examination (SUEEIt is well established that some raters are consistently harsher in their assessment of a candidate's ability than others […] From the point of view of the candidate, it becomes a matter of luck whether they are assessed by particular raters. A candidate may draw the most lenient member of the rating team and benefit as a result or, alternatively, s/he may draw the harshest member and may suffer the consequences of this. (Wigglesworth 1993: 305).

The main purpose of this study is to examine the potential impact of self-reported test anxiety on L2 academic achievement. The study sample consisted of eighty-five students from ten different state secondary schools in. Majorca. Data were collected using the Spanish version of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale (CTAS). The results show that participants suffer from moderate to high test self-reported anxiety levels, regardless of actual academic English proficiency. The findings reveal a significant effect of participants’ self-reported English proficiency on both general test anxiety, and test anxiety directly related to a high-stakes English test (the Spanish University Entrance Examination, SUEE), suggesting that self-perception of proficiency is a stronger predictor of test anxiety than actual academic grades. Additionally, a significant relationship between gender and self-reported test anxiety on the high-stakes English test was found, which indicates that female students tend to perceive certain exam situations as more personally threatening than males. In contrast, school setting (urban versus suburban) was not directly related to test anxiety.