The Effect of Teachers’ Use of L1 on Learners’ Anxiety and Enjoyment in Emergency Online Language Classrooms

Emergency online teaching and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic has called for new research. The stressful pandemic situation has doubled the importance of creating a low anxiety atmosphere and enhancing learners’ enjoyment levels. As a result, this study aimed to investigate the level of language learners’ emotions; that is, foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) in online education. Participants were eighty-one English as a foreign language (EFL) learner in four intact classes. In two of these classes, the teacher used both their first language (L1) and English, while in the other two, he only used English as the medium of instruction. They then completed a questionnaire, which included two questionnaires, one designed by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) and the other one by Dewaele and MacIntyre (2014), that reveal FLCA and FLE levels, respectively. Higher levels of FLE compared to FLCA were reported by the participants. The results also pointed to a significant negative correlation between FLE and FLCA, implying that as enjoyment increases, anxiety level decreases. Furthermore, as learners in both groups reported similar levels of FLE and FLCA, it can be concluded that teachers’ use of L1 did not affect FLE and FLCA levels in online education.