EFL Learners' Anxiety Relative to Brain Dominance and the ESL/EFL Differences

Many previous studies have demonstrated that foreign language anxiety plays an important role in learning a foreign language. To investigate one source of anxiety, the present study directly examined the relationship between brain dominance and foreign language anxiety, with 184 Korean EFL students. The results showed that left-brain dominant EFL students were more anxious in their English classes than right-brain dominant students. Regarding proficiency levels, beginners showed strong relationship tr = .755), and intermediate students showed moderate relationship (r = .566), whereas advanced students showed relatively weak, but still significant relationship (r = .342), which indicated one ESL/EFL difference: advanced ESL learners did not show any significant relationship between the two variables. These results indicate that left-brain dominance causes high levels of anxiety and that EFL teachers with many left-brain dominant students in class need to develop anxiety-reducing tasks or activities.