THE SUBTLE EFFECTS OF LANGUAGE ANXIETY ON COGNITIVE PROCESSING IN THE2ND-LANGUAGE

Previous research has shown language anxiety to be associated with bro ad-based indices of language achievement, such as course grades. This study examined some of the more specific cognitive processes that may be involved in language acquisition in terms of a three-stage model of learning: Input, Processing, and Output. These stages were represente d in a set of nine tasks that were employed to isolate and measure the language acquisition stages. A new anxiety scale was also developed t o measure anxiety at each of the stages. Generally, significant correl ations were obtained between the stage-specific anxiety scales and sta ge-specific tasks (e.g., output anxiety with output tasks) suggesting that the effects of language anxiety maybe both pervasive and subtle.