Foreign language anxiety inventory

Abstract

The aim of the research was to create a Foreign Language Anxiety Inventory in the Polish language intended for adolescent and adult students. The items of the Inventory were formulated on the basis of the definition, components, sources and manifestations of language anxiety. The data was collected from 113 Polish students of humanities. Foreign languages learned by the participants were English, French, German and Russian. A principal components analysis with varimax rotation was performed on the responses to 60 items of Foreign Language Anxiety Inventory. The analysis identified five following factors explaining 57% of the variance in the data: speaking and self-image, formal evaluation of foreign language proficiency, feeling incompetent, avoidance of learning and physiological reactions together with nervous behaviour. The values of Cronbach α coefficient for the identified five factors ranged between 0.85 and 0.95. The Inventory can serve as a research tool in diagnostic and experimental research.