The Role of Mindfulness in Mediating State-Trait and Foreign Language Anxiety

Issues related to the acquisition of a foreign language can result in negative psychological consequences further hindering the learning of the students. Anxiety among students tends to result in negative outcomes such as poor learning. Accordingly, it becomes crucial to deal with such issues to better foster the learning context of the foreign language. Thus, the purpose of this study was to test the influence of the state-trait anxiety and foreign language anxiety relationship. Additionally, mediating role of mindfulness was also examined. Aligned with the aim of the study positivism research philosophy was adopted and a quantitative-deductive approach was followed. All the variables were measured by adapting the questions from previous studies and a total of 429 students from 32 schools located in the Selangor state responded to the questionnaire distributed. The study results revealed that state-trait anxiety among the students may reduce mindfulness among the school students and it is also found to influence the foreign language anxiety. Further, mindfulness found to be a significant mediator between relationship of state-trait anxiety and foreign language anxiety. The results established that highly mindful students tend to have better learning in foreign language learning as compared to individuals with low mindfulness. From the results, variables showed symbiotic relationships and hence can be used as a model to develop a holistic personality of the learners in the future.