Classroom Interventions and Foreign Language Anxiety: A Systematic Review With Narrative Approach

• Main Authors: Michiko Toyama, Yoshitaka Yamazaki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: anxiety reduction; experimental studies; educational intervention; learning environment; foreign language classroom anxiety; interactions
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.614184/full

Experimental studies have developed, conducted, and evaluated classroom interventions for foreign language anxiety (FLA) reduction. However, various characteristics of those classroom interventions make it difficult to synthesize the findings and apply them to practice. We conducted what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first systematic review on educational interventions for FLA. Six criteria were established for inclusion of studies. Using English keywords, we identified 854 potentially eligible studies through ProQuest and Scopus, 40 of which were finally included. All included studies were published from 2007 to 2020. The studies differed in type of intervention, duration of intervention, and scale to measure FLA. Our systematic review resulted in seven features of classroom interventions, categorized as student–student interactions, student-teacher interactions, self-management, and mood boosters; we also categorized interventions as either individual or interactional.