The role of mindfulness in reducing English language anxiety among Thai college students

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to investigate whether the degree of mindfulness exhibited by a sample of Thai students had an effect on the level of anxiety they experienced in English as a second language (ESL) public speaking classes, and whether such an effect was related to the students’ level of performance in communicating in English during classroom presentations. The student sample (N = 333) was selected from four marketing major courses in a leading private international university in Thailand, all of which were taught by foreign instructors. Data were collected at different times and from multiple sources in order to lower the possibility of common method bias. The evidence from the Partial Least Squares regression analysis showed that students who reported higher levels of trait and state mindfulness while speaking English tended to experience less anxiety during their presentations. The students who reported low anxiety also obtained higher scores on their presentations than did those who reported high levels of anxiety. The analysis also found that state mindfulness appeared to have stronger explanatory power in predicting ESL public speaking anxiety than did trait mindfulness.

KEYWORDS:

• Mindfulness
• anxiety
• English as a second language
• public speaking
• self-efficacy

Acknowledgements

The author is very grateful to anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions. All remaining errors and omissions are the author's responsibility. The author would like to thank Pair Sajampun for assistance in collecting the data. This research received financial support from the International College of National Institute of Development Administration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol is an assistant professor at the International College of National Institute of Development Administration. He received his Ph.D. in International Business with the concentration in Management from the A.R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business, Texas A&M International University. His main research interests are broadly in the area of managerial psychology, cross-cultural management, strategic management, mindfulness, and social media.