Foreign language communication anxiety in correlation to the sociolinguistic variables gender, age, performance and multilingual competence : A linguistic pilot study of Swedish students’ attitudes

Abstract: This data-driven linguistic study investigates if levels of different types of foreign language communication anxiety, such as for speaking, listening, writing and/or reading that Swedish students in compulsory school (grades 7-9) and upper secondary school experience when communicating in English in their foreign language classes have any correlation to sociolinguistic variables such as gender, age, performance and/or multilingual competence. The compiled and analyzed self-report data have successfully provided a base for implied correlations between the different sociolinguistic variables and language anxiety. The most prominent indications of correlation to anxiety are the variables gender, performance (course grades) and linguistic competence. The age variable also showed indications of correlation but was less pronounced than the others. It was also found that students generally feel more and/or higher anxiety when speaking the target language than the other types of communication. The didactic implications that this study contributes to is that “communicating” as an activity conducted in the foreign language classroom needs to be further defined and broken down into specific types of skills (speaking, writing, listening, reading) and also be approached accordingly. This also implies that further research is needed to thoroughly examine the correlational effects different sociolinguistic variables have on the foreign language learning.