A Three-Body Problem: The effects of foreign language anxiety, enjoyment, and boredom on academic achievement

Abstract

This study is part of a growing wave of interest in foreign language (FL) learners’ emotions, their sources, and their effects. Previous studies have confirmed that there is a clear relationship between the emotions of foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), foreign language boredom (FLB), and foreign language performance. However, the relative importance of each emotion as a predictor of FL performance has yet to be examined, and as different teaching and learning strategies can elicit different emotions, it is difficult to determine whether FL teachers and learners should prioritize a specific emotion in course design and study. We, therefore, utilized structural equation modeling and latent dominance analysis on a sample of 502 Moroccan EFL learners in order to examine the relative importance of each emotion in predicting FL performance. We argue that it is crucial to use sophisticated statistical analyses and to collect samples from outside Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries. The latent dominance analysis revealed that FLCA had the strongest (negative) effect on English test scores. FLB had a significant—but slightly weaker—negative effect and FLE had a significant—but weaker still—positive effect. As such, it is vital that FL teachers and learners not underestimate the impact of anxiety on language learning.

Modeling the Contribution of Anxiety, Enjoyment, and Classroom Environment to Boredom among Students of English as a Foreign Language Students

“…In addition, the study revealed a significant negative relationship between FLLB and FLE, indicating that students who do not enjoy learning their foreign language are more likely to get bored. This result is not surprising, confirming previous studies (Dewaele, Albakistani, et al, 2022;Dewaele, Botes, & Greiff, 2023;Dewaele, Botes, & Meftah, 2023;Wang & Li, 2022;Zhao & Wang, 2023). The positive correlation between boredom and enjoyment provides additional support for the validation of the "undo hypothesis" proposed by the BBT (Fredrickson, 2004(Fredrickson, , p. 1371.…”

“…In addition, learners who had higher levels of FLCA experienced greater levels of boredom. The positive relationships between FLLB, FLE, and FLCA confirm the results reported by Dewaele, Botes, and Meftah (2023), as well as , who found a significant positive correlation between FLCA and FLLB among EFL learners in Morocco.…”

“…Early studies examining FLLB among L2 learners were conducted in the Polish context (e.g., Kruk & Zawodniak, 2018. Then FLLB has garnered significant attention in recent years (e.g., Dewaele, VIAL n_21 -2024Albakistani, & Ahmed, 2022Dewaele, Botes, & Greiff, 2023;Dewaele, Botes, & Meftah, 2023;Kruk, Pawlak, Shirvan, & Soleimanzadeh, 2023;Li, 2021, 22;Wang & Li, 2022). The identification of boredom as an adverse emotion that is frequently experienced by language learners (Zhao & Wang, 2023) has paved the way for studies that examined the connection between boredom and other constructs, namely FLCA and FLE.…”

Enjoyment and oral English proficiency in future teachers

“…The measurement instrument for enjoyment in foreign languages has evolved from the original proposal of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale by Dewaele and MacIntyre in 2014 [cited by Dewaele et al (2023)], which consisted of 21 items. In 2021, Botes et al (2022) developed a shortened version, the Short-Form Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale, reducing the items to nine for a more efficient measurement (Botes et al, 2022).…”

Investigating Boredom Among Chinese Senior High School Students in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

“…For instance, it may be frequently noticed by teachers that students complain about disinterest in learning a certain subject, doing homework, participating in classroom activities, or teachers' lectures. In the field of foreign language education and second language acquisition, extant scholarly attempts mainly addressed its sources, measurement, and correlation with other academic emotions (e.g., Dewaele, Botes, & Greiff, 2023;Dewaele, Botes, & Meftah, 2023;Li et al, 2021;Zawodniak et al, 2023), with the context-specific features and differences among varied student groups based on demographic factors such as gender and class type under-researched (e.g., Ma et al, 2023). In addition, a large body of related studies examined EFL or L2 boredom among adult learners such as undergraduate students (e.g., Alanazi & Bensalem, 2024;Bai, 2023;Elahi Shirvan et al, 2023), and little attention has been directed to EFL classroom boredom experienced by students in secondary education (e.g., Y.…”