چكيده به لاتين
Students act according to their beliefs and mindsets. Being aware of these conceptualizations can help teachers make sound and evidence-based educational decisions. Mindset can play a key role in student’s learning and achievement. Negative thoughts and feelings, reflected in anxiety symptoms, can affect the learning process and result in lower levels of proficiency. The purpose of this study was to explore the language mindsets of students in an EFL context to serve different purposes of educational success. Furthermore, this thesis aimed at exploring the relationship among language mindset, language proficiency and anxiety through path analysis in an EFL context at different proficiency levels. The sample of five hundred Iranian English learners in private language institutes took part in this study. The participants were learning English as a foreign language in different institutes in Tehran. A convenience sampling design was applied in the study. The instrument used was a modified version of Drawing from Dweck’s mindsets frame- work, research regarding language beliefs and recent qualitative findings on language mindsets, which is the newest and the most frequent questionnaire about mindset. The results of this study showed that there is a significant relationship among mindset, anxiety and language proficiency. Negative attitudes towards learning a foreign language such as fear of negative evaluation, bad experiences in the classroom and student’s beliefs about their abilities have association with anxiety. Additionally, students with higher levels of proficiency have more positive mindsets and experience less anxiety. Implications in light of such interrelationship are discussed.
