ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1618239
An Empirical Study on Flow Experience Regulation in Reducing English Listening Anxiety among High School Students
Provisionally accepted
Xiu Liu
Mingjin Lin*- Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
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This study investigates the moderating effect of flow experience on English listening anxiety in the context of high school English instruction in China. A total of 105 first-year high school students participated in the experiment. Quantitative data collected through tests and questionnaires revealed that flow experience significantly reduced listening anxiety by enhancing learners' concentration, task engagement, and intrinsic motivation. Moreover, flow, as a positive psychological state, was associated with improved listening comprehension. Among students with higher levels of anxiety, flow played a crucial regulatory role by buffering the negative effects of anxiety through cognitive, emotional, and behavioral mechanisms. These findings suggest that incorporating flow-based strategies into listening instruction may serve as an effective approach to reducing anxiety and improving learning outcomes.
Keywords: English Listening Anxiety, listening instruction, flow experience, ESL (english as a second language), Teaching suggestions
Received: 23 May 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu and Lin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mingjin Lin, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
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