A Comparative Investigation into Speaking Anxiety of Extroverted and Introverted Iranian EFL Learners

This study sought to investigate the connection between foreign language anxiety andextroversion and introversion personality types. The way adult language learnersconceptualize their fear of negative evaluation as a component of foreign language anxietyconstruct was also investigated. To this end, 50 Iranian adult language learners were selectedas participants of the study and divided into two groups of extroverts and introverts. Thegrouping based on extroversion/introversion were handled using Eysenck PersonalityQuestionnaire (EPQ). Half of the students who had the highest score in extroversion sub-scalewere put into extroversion group and the remaining half were put into introvert group. Tomeasure level of students’ anxiety, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)was utilized. To probe the possible differences between introverts and extroverts in terms oflanguage anxiety, statistical technique of T-test was run. Results showed that extroverts weresignificantly less anxious than introverts. With respect to the way Iranian foreign languagelearners conceptualize fear of negative evaluation, a semi-structured interview was carried outwith 20 participants. After collecting students’ responses to the interview questions, contentanalysis was conducted to find the recurrent patterns. It was revealed that students had fear ofnegative evaluation from both teachers and classmates. Error correction and incongruencebetween teacher’s expectation and student’s expectations regarding language performancewere among the aspects of fear of negative evaluation.