The role of foreign language anxiety and task complexity on fluency in German learners of Dutch

Abstract

This study investigated which aspects of fluency are related to foreign language anxiety and proficiency, and how this interacts with task complexity during a non-exam situation. Sixty-one low-intermediate German learners of Dutch completed a foreign language anxiety questionnaire, a proficiency test and two speech production tasks. Correlational analyses showed that anxiety was negatively related to number of mid-clause pauses in a complex task. Proficiency was positively related to numerous speed and breakdown fluency measures in a simple task. Mixed-effects models demonstrated that proficiency predicted two fluency measures. Task type positively predicted speed fluency. Anxiety was not a significant predictor of any fluency measure, which may be related to participants’ relatively low anxiety level. This finding suggests that anxiety may not have a strong influence during speaking tasks that are not part of formal assessments.

Keywords

• fluency
• foreign language anxiety
• task complexity
• proficiency