The causes, effects and ways to deal with anxiety in the english as a foreign language (efl) classroom have been well-researched and documented over the past thirty years - but not in ecuador. this quantitative study measures the foreign language anxiety (fla) of efl students at a public ecuadorian university (n = 301) using a spanish version of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) (horwitz, horwitz & cope, 1986). findings show that ecuadorian students may be more prone to communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation than test anxiety in the english language classroom. moreover, whilst male and female scores are not significantly different in general, women do seem to suffer more for speech and receiver anxiety (communication apprehension) and test anxiety. interestingly, a significant relationship is established between the cost of the high school a student graduated from and his/her level of anxiety suggesting that past negative or positive learning