Classroom Anxiety and Self-efficacy among Learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language in Canada

The recent increase in international students has led to more attention to inclusive pedagogical methods in foreign language classrooms at Canadian universities. International students from Asia constitute a significant part of foreign language learners in Canadian universities (Statistics Canada, 2022b). In particular, Asian young adult learners have higher foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) (Toyama & Yamazaki, 2022). In addition, it has been observed that East Asian learners’ self-efficacy (SE) affects their foreign/second language (L2) proficiency more than that of learners from Western cultures (Wang ＆ Sun, 2020). Specifically in reading, listening, and writing, foreign language anxiety (FLA) negatively correlates with SE (Reading and Listening: Mills et al., 2006; Writing: Woodrow, 2011). \n\nThe present study employed a mixed methods approach (survey and interviews) to investigate learners’ FLCA, speaking SE (SSE), oral proficiency, and attitudes toward classmates’ language proficiency among Asian international learners (AILs) and Canadian learners (CLs) of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). Fifty-two individuals participated in the study, who attended elective Japanese language courses at a medium-sized university in Canada. \n\nThe quantitative instrument was a survey that contained questions about demographic information, FLCA, SSE, engagement, and motivation for Japanese learning. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient demonstrated a medium negative correlation between FLCA and SSE among AILs. However, no significant correlations were confirmed among CLs. The short oral proficiency test (OPT) scores were negatively correlated with AILs’ FLCA and positively correlated with their SSE but not CLs’.\n\nThe qualitative approach employed a 30-minute-long semi-structured interview where the participants were asked mainly about their perception of their classmates’ Japanese proficiency and the moments they felt anxious. A thematic analysis demonstrated that most AILs feared making mistakes during lectures in their Japanese classes and were self-conscious of their utterances in front of their classes. On the contrary, some CLs felt anxious when they were not well-prepared for class content. Still, most CLs rarely paid much attention to high achievers in their Japanese classes. \n\nIn conclusion, the study found that AILs were primarily concerned about making mistakes in their Japanese classes, whereas some CLs were not negatively affected by their classmates' presence.

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