The Relationship Between Phonetics Learning Anxiety and Serbian EFL Students’ Test Performance

Abstract

Students’ oral performance in a target language is notoriously hindered by issues with anxiety and apprehension, and pronunciation seems to be the first impression students make on an interlocutor. The present study aimed at investigating the possible relationship between the expressed level of phonetics learning anxiety and the actual performance on a test assessing knowledge in English phonetics. A total of 36 English-major students at the tertiary level of education participated in the study by filling out the questionnaire and completing the formal test in phonetics. The results indicated a strong, statistically significant negative correlation between anxiety levels and test scores, showing that the higher the students’ level of anxiety was, the lower the scores they received on the test. The findings point to important pedagogical implications re- lated to the teaching of English pronunciation to Serbian EFL learners and underline the need for recognizing the indispensability of the interplay of affective factors in foreign language learning.