The present research examined the associations between foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA) and strategy use (FLLSU) and their predicting effects on test performance of high- and low-proficient Chinese university English as a foreign language learners. 1160 first-year undergraduate non-English majors answered the battery of questionnaires and took the listening test, among whom 227 low- and 243 high-proficient students were included in the final analyses of the collected data. The findings were as follows: (1) the low-proficient group was significantly more anxious about English listening and less confident in their English listening proficiency, and employed word-oriented and less active listener strategies significantly more often than their high-proficient peers, (2) FLLA was generally significantly correlated with FLLSU for both high- and low-proficient groups, and (3) FLLSU was a good predictor for English listening test performance for both low- and high-proficient students. It is thus concluded that FLLA and FLLSU are two closely interrelated and important factors in second/foreign language (SL/FL) learning, that FLLSU is a more influential factor for SL/FL listening learning, and that proficiency greatly mediates students’ FLLA levels and FLLSU frequencies.
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