Exploring foreign language anxiety and self-disclosure relationships in task design for e-tandem speaking practice

Abstract

The emergence of videoconferencing tools in the 1990s provided language learners with opportunities to carry out speaking practice anytime and anywhere. However, the presence of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in this interactional setting can hinder such ubiquitous benefits as FLA inhibits learning and communication in the Foreign Language (FL) (Horwitz, 2001). This article presents a case study developed in a five week e-tandem project in which 12 language learners (six Spanish and six English native speakers) participated via videoconference. Based on a mixed methods approach, the study explores the relationship between four different communicative task types with different levels of required Self-Disclosure (SD), the participants’ levels of SD and FLA, and the resulting SD elements present in the conversation. Results showed that the different task types seem to have an effect on participants linking FLA and SD. However, the real trigger for SD events was not the task but the learner’s characteristics and familiarity with the partner and topic.