Investigating the Mediating Role of Foreign Language Anxiety in Students' Task Goal Orientations, Perceived Communication Competence, English Ability, and Willingness to Communicate in EMI Classrooms

Recent years have seen increased attention being given to English-medium instruction (EMI) in university academic subjects. Task or mastery goal plays an indispensable role in determining how students develop their academic abilities and how they motivate themselves to succeed in academic subjects. Task goal orientations and students' perceived communication competence are found to relate negatively to negative emotions, which undermine their motivation to participate and willingness to communicate (WTC) in class. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of foreign language anxiety (FLA) in the relationship between task goal orientations, perceived communication competence, English ability, and WTC in EMI classrooms. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 613 university students in Taiwan. The structural model revealed that students' WTC in EMI classes was strongly influenced by their task goal orientations and perceived communication competence. Foreign language anxiety fully mediated the relation between perceived communication competence and WTC, but partially mediated the relation between task goal orientations and WTC at subject content-focused level. Foreign language anxiety did not mediate the relations between the two predictors (i.e., communication competence and task goal orientations) and WTC at language-focused level. Although English ability was weakly related to FLA and WTC at language-focused level in EMI classes, it did not affect FLA and students' WTC in the model.