The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom

The present study investigates Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) in the classroom. Participants were 1746 current FL learners from around the world. We used a measure of FLE, based on Likert scale ratings of 21 items (Dewaele & MacIntyre, 2014), and a measure of FLCA based on 8 items extracted from the FLCAS (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986). Statistical analyses revealed that levels of FLE were significantly higher than those of FLCA. FLE and FLCA were linked to a number of independent variables: participants’ perception of their relative level of proficiency within the FL classroom, number of languages known, education level, number of FLs under study, age…