Students’ feedback beliefs and anxiety in online foreign language oral tasks

Abstract

Research about the interrelation between anxiety and corrective feedback has mostly been conducted in face-to-face environments. The present study examines the relationship between students showing anxiety when speaking a FL and feedback as a potential anxiety inhibitor in an online oral synchronous communication task. Two questionnaires, the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLAS) and the Corrective Feedback Belief Scale (CFBS), were administered to 50 students from the School of Languages in an online learning environment. T-test analysis showed a significant difference between the learners’ preferences in two methods of CF. Recast and Metalinguistic feedback were better rated by the students who reported higher levels of anxiety in oral communication classes. Additionally, the High-level anxiety group rated teacher feedback as more effective than the other sources of feedback when compared to the Low-level anxiety group. These results indicate the need to take into account individual differences in terms of anxiety foreign language learning and students’ beliefs about CF in order to help them achieve their learning goals in an interactive online environment.