Abstract:
This study was carried out in order to identify to what extent the Turkish students’ English classroom anxiety affects
their academic achievement in English language. In this quantitative descriptive study, a correlational survey model was
employed, and the convenience sampling was done. In order to collect data, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety
Scale developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) was used. The latest validity-reliability of this scale was
conducted by Gürsu (2011), in which the three-factor structure of the scale was confirmed. The test-retest correlation of
the scale was found as .85. This study was conducted with 271 university engineering students receiving compulsory
prep-class education at Fırat University during the academic year of 2012-2013. The data of the study were analyzed
with the logistic regression analysis. According to the findings, the foreign language anxiety at the beginning of the
prep-class education was not effective as the predictor of the academic achievement. On the other hand, it was observed
that the students’ anxiety, at the end of the education, accounted for the academic failure with its speaking anxiety in
language class dimension, and predicted academic achievement with its interest towards language class dimension. This
study revealed that the students’ anxiety evolving and ever-increasing during their English prep-education powerfully
predicted their academic performance. Whatever its source may be, anxiety in learning environments is mostly an
unwanted situation. Therefore, it has always been underlined in the literature that in order to facilitate learners’
language learning process, the effect of anxiety should be minimized.
