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Whether you call it speech anxiety, communication apprehension, fear of public

speaking, or just plain fear, one thing is certain, the majority of

people experience the same thing when speaking to a group of people in a N E

formal setting. Fear of oral presentation has been considered normal for every

speaker even in his or her native language. Sometimes just the thought of giving

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a speech makes us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes those feelings manifest into

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physical reactions such as sweating, stuttering, flushedness and dizziness. Often

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we forget what we are going to say, feel unprepared and unsure, and just want

the experience to end. "Even in small group discussions, for instance, some

learners might feel anxious for fear of negative evaluation from their peers, learners might feel anxious for fear of negative evaluation from their peers,

Second/foreign language learners in learning to speak a second/foreign language commonly express feelings of anxiety, apprehension and nervousness. These feelings are considered to exert a potentially negative and harmful effect on communication in the target language. The use of modern communicative language teaching approaches in the language classrooms and the widespread use of English language have increased the demand to learn good communication skills but existence of such feelings in the learners may avoid them from achieving the desired goal. Consideration of learners’ anxiety reactions in learning to converse another language by a language teacher is deemed highly important in order to assist them to achieve the intended performance goals in the target language.

Anxiety, generally defined as "a state of apprehension, a vague fear" (Scovel, 1978), seems difficult to describe in a simple and exhaustive manner, as it arises from many kinds of sources often associated with particular contexts or

situations that individuals perceive threatening according to their unique frame

of reference (Eharman, 1996). Previous anxiety research suggests that there are 85

roughly two types that can be experienced at different psychological levels

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(Spielberger, 1983; Levitt, 1980; Schwarzer, 1986). At the deepest – or global –

level, anxiety is viewed as a permanent trait, as some people are predisposed to N

be anxious. At a more local or situational level, anxiety can be experienced in

response to a particular situation or act (Brown, 1994). However, the question S G

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of how these constructs relate to second language learning contexts is still under

debate, although several interpretations of language anxiety are offered in terms CE

of situational nature of state anxiety (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991a).

Psychologists make a distinction between three categories of anxiety: trait

anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety. Trait anxiety is relatively

stable personality characteristic, ‘a more permanent predisposition to be

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anxious’ (Scovel, 1978 cited in Ellis, 1994) while state anxiety is a transient

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anxiety, a response to a particular anxiety-provoking stimulus such as an

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important test (Spielberger, 1983 cited in Horwitz, 2001). The third category,

Situation-specific anxiety, refers to the persistent and multi-faceted nature of

some anxieties (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991a). It is aroused by a specific type of some anxieties (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991a). It is aroused by a specific type of

According to Horwitz et al. (1986), language anxiety, a distinct phenomenon particular to language learning, comprises 3 componential sources, especially in relation to various kinds of L2 activities that the learners perform in the classroom (i) communication apprehension; (ii) test anxiety and (iii) fear of negative evaluation. Communication apprehension, which generally refers to a type of anxiety experienced in interpersonal communicative settings (McCroskey, 1987), is relevant to second/foreign language learning contexts. Especially in the language classroom where the learners have little control of the communicative situation and their performance is constantly monitored by both their teacher and peers (Horwitz et al., 1986), communication apprehension seems to be augmented in relation to the learner's negative self-perceptions caused by the inability to understand others and make oneself understood (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989, 1991c). Test anxiety is apprehension over academic evaluation. Test anxiety may be generated by deficits in students’ learning and study skills. Or it can be caused by students’ poor performance in the past. The third component, fear of negative evaluation, is defined as apprehension about others’ assessment from a learner’s need to make a positive social impression on others.

Every human being acquires some degree of self-esteem and belief in one’s own

capabilities in delivering one’s own task, although the degree is different from

each other. Men grow with the development of a notion of self from experiences 85

with themselves and others and the external world around him. And a sense of

self-esteem may be developed from assessing the self in relation to others and

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the external world. 9

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S G IN D LITERATURE REVIEW E