Listening Anxiety as a Disruption of Real-Time Processing in EFL Learning

Abstract

Listening comprehension is increasingly conceptualized in the applied linguistic context as a complex, real-time cognitive process that operates within strict time constraints. Despite its central role in second and foreign language proficiency, listening remains a persistent source of difficulty for many learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Recent studies have become interested in affective variables, especially anxiety, as a key determinant of language performance, but listening anxiety has been underexamined topic, and researchers have tended to study it in terms of outcome measures such as test scores. This type of method provides little information about how anxiety operates during the listening process itself.
The cognitive-affective, process-based approach, which is taken in this paper, has redefined the concept of listening anxiety as an interference with real-time processing when listening in foreign languages. Referring to psycholinguistic theories of online understanding and cognitive theory of anxiety, this paper contends that listening anxiety poses a competition due to barriers on limited cognitive resources, attentional regulation, working memory overload, and disrupted coordination of bottom-up and top-down processing. These interruptions predispose the learners to a cascading breakdown in comprehension under temporal pressure.
The study also adds to the current trends in applied linguistics that emphasize dynamic, learner-centered, and mechanism-based explanations of language learning by refocusing analytical attention on the mechanisms of listening, rather than its outcome. The article contributes to a sophisticated conceptualization of listening anxiety in EFL situations and highlights the need for further research on listening anxiety as an integral component of real-time listening rather than as a peripheral affective variable.