Second language anxiety and enjoyment among primary school-aged students: a systematic review

Abstract

There is a longstanding consensus that there is a negative relationship between second language (L2) enjoyment and L2 anxiety. However, the extent and nature of this relationship among younger age groups is still unclear. Furthermore, the interchangeable usage of L2 and foreign language (FL) in extant literature presented a significant obstacle for accurate contextual interpretation and generalization of past findings warranting further investigation. Utilizing Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model as an analytical framework, this systematic review investigated the negative relationship between L2 enjoyment and L2 anxiety as well as associated factors to gain a deeper understanding of the negative L2 enjoyment-anxiety relationship among primary school-aged students (6–12 years old). An extensive database search was conducted across five major online databases between 1986 and 2025 supplemented by manual reference searches. Only five studies out of 1418 unique results met the inclusion criteria with the earliest study published in 2018, illustrating an emerging but limited literature. Key findings provided preliminary evidence for a generally mild-to-moderate negative L2 enjoyment-anxiety relationship as well as associated micro- (L2 classroom disengagement) and macrosystemic (societal attitudes) factors that illustrate dual-affective proximal and indirect distal processes respectively. Implications for practice, policy and future research are discussed.