Chinese university EFL learners’ foreign language classroom anxiety and enjoyment in an online learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACTABSTRACTThe present study investigated foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) of 492 Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in their online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The quantitative data revealed that the participants reported higher levels of FLE than FLCA in online learning and that FLE was negatively correlated with FLCA. FLE was more strongly predicted by teacher-related variables (i.e., teachers’ friendliness, their familiarity with teaching platforms, their joking, English accent, and frequency of speaking English in class), while FLCA was mainly predicted by learner-internal variables (i.e., relative standing among peers and online interaction with the teacher). The qualitative data confirmed that Chinese EFL learners’ FLE was strongly linked to the teacher, while their FLCA to the learners themselves. Based on these findings, the study provided pedagogical implications for online EFL teaching and learning.KEYWORDS: foreign language classroom anxietyForeign language enjoymentChinese EFL learnersonline learningemergency remote teaching Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications [500522431]. This research is also part of the project entitled Exploring AWE-Supported Writing Process Through an Activity Theory Perspective supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Projects, Ministry of Education, China (Project Number: 21YJAZH010).Notes on contributorsRenqing YuanRenqing Yuan is a lecturer at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and a Phd student at Tsinghua University. His research interests include: learner emotions, foreign language teaching.