Abstract

The study was an attempt to investigate whether there was any difference on beliefs and anxiety between learners of different foreign languages. Subjects were 117 Taiwanese foreign language learners, participating in a university’s foreign languages program, including forty in the English class and seventy-seven in the Japanese class. They were arranged to fill out a questionnaire dealing with their belief (Horwitz 1988) and anxiety (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986) about that target language. Findings showed that English learners had more favorable beliefs about English learning, but Japanese learners were more anxious about learning Japanese. In addition, students’ beliefs were found to have some impacts on their anxiety, and some significant differences did exist in beliefs and anxiety between English learners and Japanese learners. The findings can provide language teachers with more understanding about their individual students’ beliefs and anxiety in learning that target language.