Mindfulness Meditation in Foreign Language Listening Comprehension

Learning a second or foreign language can be a very pleasant and rewarding experience as well as a source of great anxiety. Anxiety plays a crucial role in determining learners' success or failure (McIntyre and Gardner, 1989). Although language anxiety is a constant reality for many learners, listening comprehension (LC) anxiety is specific to this particular task and it is known as trait anxiety. LC is a fundamental skill in achieving language competence and anxiety can inhibit input understanding, influencing performance and proficiency levels. Can listening comprehension be taught effectively? What role do affective strategies play in second/foreign language acquisition and are they ever taught?A valuable affective learning strategy for lowering anxiety, mastering self- regulation and managing attention is mindfulness meditation, which positively affects LC skills. This study examines the role of mindfulness meditation, employed as an affective learning strategy, in promoting listening comprehension (LC) skills in adult foreign language learners, by lowering LC-specific trait anxiety and by promoting attention regulation.