Anxiety in the College Japanese Language Classroom

The purpose of this study was to investigate 2 potential sources of the anxiety of college learners of Japanese in oral practice: (a) an individual student’s fear of negative evaluation, and (b) his or her self‐perceived speaking ability. A survey was administered to 212 students in Japanese courses at 2 major universities. Using correlations and regression, the study found that: (a) An individual student’s anxiety was higher as his or her fear of negative evaluation was stronger, and the strength of this tendency depended on the instructional level and the experience of going to Japan; (b) an individual student’s anxiety was higher as he or she perceived his or her ability as lower than that of peers and native speakers; (c) the anxiety level of a male student became higher as he perceived himself less competent; and (d) the fear of negative evaluation and the self‐perceived speaking ability did not interact to influence the anxiety level of an individual student.