A longitudinal, multi-contextual study of foreign language classroom anxiety, meaning in life, and coping among EFL learners

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) research has largely developed apart from the broader stress, coping, and meaning-in-life literatures, leaving unclear whether a brief, classroom-embedded, meaning-centered coping intervention can shift the language-learning stress process at both the termly and daily levels. This study tested whether such an intervention reduces FLCA and perceived stress, and increases meaning in life, resilience, and wellbeing, more than standard instruction, and whether family support, classroom climate, and coping style independently shape these outcomes. A three-wave longitudinal survey ( n = 400 EFL learners nested in 20 classrooms, 10 Intervention/10 Control) was paired with a 10-day digital ecological momentary assessment (EMA) diary sub-study ( n = 120) capturing daily stress, coping, and self-logged resting heart rate from wearable devices. Gain scores were compared via Welch’s t-tests with Cohen’s d; cross-sectional predictors were tested using linear regression. The Intervention condition showed significantly larger reductions in FLCA (d = − 0.93) and perceived stress (d = − 1.00), and larger increases in meaning presence (d = 0.92), resilience (d = 0.63), and wellbeing (d = 0.41). Avoidant coping, not family support or classroom climate, was the strongest predictor of FLCA ( r = 0.50). Resting heart rate and momentary stress rose on speaking-task days, with smaller reactivity under Intervention. These results imply that brief, curriculum-embedded, meaning-centered coping instruction can be adopted as a scalable, low-cost complement to individual counselling in EFL classrooms, and that classroom-climate initiatives alone are unlikely to reduce FLCA unless they also target learners’ coping repertoires, particularly avoidant coping. This is the first study to integrate FLCA with meaning-in-life theory using longitudinal, multilevel, physiological methods.