The relationship between the anxiety level of Iranian elementary EFL learners and their vocabulary learning strategies

Abstract

The current study aimed at examining the relationship between anxiety level of Iranian elementary English as a foreign language learners and the strategies that they adopt for learning English vocabulary. To this end, based on the performance of the participants on the Quick Placement Test, the researcher recruited 100 participants through availability sampling. To determine the strategies that the participants employ for learning English vocabulary, Schmitt’s taxonomy of vocabulary learning (VL) strategies questionnaire was administered. Also, the Spearman correlation was run to determine the correlation between various levels of anxiety and different VL strategies. The findings of the current study indicated that the effects of anxiety can adversely affect a person’s use of VL strategies. Likewise, when there is an increase in anxiety, VL strategy use decreases to a significant extent. Keywords: Vocabulary learning, strategies, foreign language, classroom, anxiety scale.