The relationship between motivational variables, anxiety, exposure to English, and language learning strategies among adult ESL learners

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between motivation, anxiety, language learning strategies, and the amount of and quality of contact with English among adult English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in the United States. The study specifically examined whether levels of self-efficacy and anxiety had stronger associations with learning strategy use than task value and intrinsic motivation. Further, the researcher investigated how amounts of time living in the United States, studying ESL classes, and studying English in the participants' native countries related to their levels of motivation, anxiety, and language learning strategy usage. One hundred and fourteen students in a high-level ESL writing/grammar course at a southern California community college participated in the study. The highly skewed nature of the data and the lack of fit to linear and nonlinear regression models rendered regression analysis meaningless; hence, the researcher could not determine whether self-efficacy and anxiety influenced learning strategy use more than task value and intrinsic motivation. Nevertheless, task value and intrinsic motivation had stronger associations with metacognitive strategies than self-efficacy and anxiety, whereas self-efficacy had a stronger association with active language use strategies than task value and intrinsic motivation. Nonparametric tests showed that there were several significant differences in levels of motivation, anxiety, and learning strategy use with respect to the amount of and quality of exposure to English among culturally/linguistically heterogeneous groups of participants. When participants were separated into East Asian and non-East Asian groups, the number of significant differences decreased. The results of the intercorrelations and group comparisons partly corresponded with and partly contradicted Clement's social context model.