The Relationship among the Cognitive Load, Foreign Language Anxiety, and Performance in College English Listening Comprehension Class
Abstract: This study investigated the possible existence of relationship between learners’ foreign language anxiety and cognitive load in an English listening comprehension class. Research findings indicated that a) foreign language anxiety positively correlated with the cognitive load; b) both foreign language anxiety and cognitive load have a negative correlation with performance; c) student’s ability level was negatively correlated with their FL anxiety, but positively correlated with the performance; d) with the degree of students’ perceived difficulty of listening comprehension increases, the anxiety level and cognitive also increased; the test scores, however, decreased. The results propose that to reduce student’s cognitive load in the listening comprehension task may be achieved by decreasing student’s foreign language anxiety as well as perceived difficulty of English listening comprehension. Suggestions for alleviating anxiety in a listening comprehension class and further research regarding this issue are provided.