language instructors. As a solution, some of them demanded a more difficult FL entrance exam in order to prevent the mixing of these two different groups, as well as streamed language classes, one for native speakers (Muttersprachler) and one for ordinary students of German, which would greatly facilitate perceived peer pressure. In the context of university-level German classes at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, there is this additional aspect of student bilingualism that makes the picture more complex. As expected, participants who had not learned English or German longer and had poorer language skills displayed significantly higher language anxiety levels than students who had learned it for a longer period of time and had better language skills (cf. Chen, 2001; Ganschow et al., 1994). The negative experience of failing a language exam was also associated with higher levels of FL anxiety. The language exam is a high-stakes exam and it is a source of anxiety for FL majors. Therefore, it is essential that language instructors should be familiar with different student affective profiles and their previous experiences with the TL. No significant relationships were found between language anxiety and the number of FLs learned, the intention of learning more languages, and self-perception of aptitude for languages in English majors. We are inclined to think that perhaps high exposure to English counterbalances the significance of knowledge of other languages. Such an explanation is based on the suggestive findings in our study that German majors seemed not to be quite sure that they possessed high FL aptitude. A significant (though low) negative correlation between FL anxiety and the number of other languages learned (R=- .19, p=0.038) suggests that German majors with less language learning experience perhaps lacked the required level of linguistic self-confidence, which led to both lower competence in German as well as higher language anxiety. Data from open-ended items pointed to an interaction between language anxiety and attitudes to language instructors (Marchand & Skinner, 2007; Wentzel, 1997), FL achievement (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2001) and FL anxiety. The role of language instructors in FL anxiety should definitely be investigated further as our findings suggest such investigations might offer extremely relevant insights. A lack of motivation among German majors could also be one of language anxiety predictors explaining differences in anxiety between English and German majors. Regarding differences in FL anxiety between male or female students (H4), female students reported higher levels of language anxiety, as was found in Campbell and Shaw (1994). However, the gender difference was not significant in the German group (t=1.903, p= .60), most probably because of the low number of male participants, especially in the second and third years of study. The hypothesis (H5) dealing with the role of participants’ place of residence was also confirmed at the level of the whole sample. Participants from villages or towns indeed experienced higher FL anxiety levels than participants from cities. The find-
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