Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: Factors Leadingto Speaking Anxiety and Strategies to Overcome The Anxiety

  THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

  SarjanaPendidikan

  Andreas Triko Danang Pamungkas 112013079 ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA SALATIGA

  This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text. Copyright @2017: Andreas Triko Danang Pamungkas and Gita Hastuti, M.A. All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education Program of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana Salatiga.

  Andreas Triko Danang Pamungkas:

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

   PERNYATAAN TIDAK PLAGIAT ..................................................................... ii PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN AKSES ......................................................... iii PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION ............................................. iv APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................................v

  

  

  

  

  

  

LIST OF FIGURES

  Figure 1. Overall Factors L eading to Speaking Anxiety………........................... 18 Figure 2. Low self-perception of linguistic competence....................................... 19 Figure 3. Negative attitudes toward classroom variables...................................... 20 Figure 4. Fear of failing tests

  …………………………………………………… 22 Figure 5. Being aware of mistakes…………….................................................... 24

  

FACTORS LEADING TO SPEAKING ANXIETY AND

STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME THE ANXIETY

ANDREAS TRIKO DANANG PAMUNGKAS

112013079

  

ABSTRACT

  This study addressed the speaking anxiety issue experienced by students of Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA) of Satya Wacana Christian University. This study attempted to answer the research question: ‘What factors are responsible for students’ speaking anxiety?

  ’ and ‘What do students do to overcome their anxiety?’ The participants of this study were 92 students from English Language Education program of FLA. They were asked to fill in a questionnaire related to speaking classes and their anxieties.

  Through qualitative-descriptive analysis, it was found that there were four most common speaking anxieties: low self-perception of linguistic competence, followed by negative attitudes toward classroom variables, fear of failing tests, and being aware of mistakes. The findings also indicated four most common and most effective strategies to reduce anxiety: preparing the outline before delivering a speech, practicing the speech over and over again, using positive self-talk, and taking a deep breath to gain comfortable feeling. This study could give insight and understanding of different factors causing anxiety, and how to cope with students ’ anxiety in speaking classes.

  

Key word: speaking anxiety, factors, strategies, speaking class

  

INTRODUCTION

  Speaking skill is considered important in learning English as a foreign language. Therefore, Speaking for Social Purposes course is provided in the Faculty of Language and Arts of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana to help improve students’ communicative skills. In this course, students will have numerous roles as an English speaker in various situations. A wide range of activities have been prepared to boost students’ confidence in pairs, groups, or direct discussions with the teacher. The students speaking skills will be assessed through diverse forms of assessment which include the speaking test, graded role play, talking at a party, speaking at the English Fair, participation in all class activities and speaking reflection. Students are expected to fulfill several aspects of speaking such as fluency, pronunciation,

• – grammar, and vocabulary (Speaking for Social Purposes syllabus Semester 1 2016/2017). Those aspects are required for the first year students in learning speaking. Yet, it may not be easy for the students who are taking the speaking class.

  Passive students in language learning have become an issue for the teacher. Snell (1999) stated that students avoid interaction using English and tend to ignore the teacher. He also stated that students choose to remain silent if the teacher asked questions, even if they know the answers. As this study focuses on this problem, it is necessary to define the term “anxiety”. According to Zhanadilov & Zhanadilova (2013) anxiety is “a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an o bject” (p.20). Similarly, Arnold (2006, as cited in Bozavli & Gulmez, 2012) added that anxiety is related to such feelings as fear, frustration, tension, and insecurity (p.1034).

  Generally speaking, students’ speaking anxiety has significant impacts and influences in EFL classroom. When I was a first year student, I got anxious every time I thought about speaking in front of other people and talking to the teachers. This feeling made me skip classes and always come unprepared for presentations. Because English is a foreign language to me, it made me tend to be unresponsive and passive during classes. Anxiety became my main problem in speaking classes. Based on my experience above, I am interested to find the answer to my research questions:

  What do students do to overcome their anxiety? Furthermore, the purpose of this study is to identify the factors that are responsible for students’ speaking anxiety in the language learning process. The seco nd purpose of this research is to reveal students’ strategies to cope with anxiety problems. By reading this paper, students are hoped to find out ways to relieve their anxious feeling in speaking classes. This study hopefully can also help the teachers in his/her Speaking for Social Purposes class. The information could give insight and understanding of different factors and how to cope with students’ anxiety in speaking classes.

  

LITERATURE REVIEW

Definition of Anxiety

  Merriam- Webster’s Dictionary (2016) defined anxiety as “An abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs

  (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it”. Hashemi

  & Abbasi (2013), in their study, stated that when anxiety occurred during learners’ second or foreign language learning process, it is known as ‘second/foreign language anxiety’ (p. 640).

  Chowdhury (2014) stated that “language anxiety is a complicated psychological negative feelings, attitudes and beliefs of human being that may arouse in learners based on different issues when they learn or use a language” (p.10).Specifically, Gardner & MacIntyre (1993, p.5) viewed language anxiety as “the apprehension experienced when a situation requires the use of a second language with which the individual is not fully proficient”. Broadly speaking, anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease when interacting with others in a group.

  Factors Leading to Speaking Anxiety

  The most provoking factor of anxiety for many learners is speaking in a foreign language (Zhang & Zhong, 2012,). Factors that may cause speaking anxiety are as follows:

  Being aware of mistakes

  . Learners have a problem during language learning and speaking because of the fear of making mistakes. MacIntyre (1999) stated that if the students are aware of their mistakes at the earliest stages of language learning, he/she will become anxious about t his experience (as cited in Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel, 2013, p. 149). Akkakoson (2016) explained in his study that at the time students did not know what they are saying, they arise worry feeling of being insulted by his/her friends. He added that students prefer to remain silent in order not to seem foolish in the eyes of his/her peers.

  Gregerson (2003, as cited in Zhang &Zhong, 2012, p.29) also pointed out that when speaking in the target language, a nervous student is afraid of being ridiculed by others in a conversation. This is in line with a study by Jones (2004) where he stated that students in language learning feel fear of appearing awkward, foolish and incompetent in front of his/her classmates (as cited in Hashemi & Abbasi, 2013, p.642). Therefore, inferior feeling as a result of making mistakes in front of others may induce anxiety.

  Low self-perception of linguistic competence.

  MacIntyre (1999) stated that sometimes grammar of the target language becomes responsible for creating anxiety.

  According to him, when learners face problems understanding the grammar they become anxious (as cited in Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel, 2013, p. 149). Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel (2013) also added that students are becoming anxious if they lack grammatical knowledge and do not use it regularly.

  Hilleson (1996, as cited in Zhang &Zhong, 2012) explained that poor vocabulary in speaking with peers and teacher is a great turn down and makes the student uncomfortable to continue their speech. In addition, Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel (2013) found from their study that vocabulary had great effects in language anxiety.

  They added that many students feel frustrated because they lack knowledge in vocabulary when they speak. They suggested that the students also feel nervous if they cannot remember the right words to use.

  Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel (2013) believed that pronunciation is another factor that affects students’ anxiety. Participants in their study stated that poor or absurd pronunciation occurs during speaking. Therefore, it makes them uncomfortable and nervous. Similarly, Hashemi & Abbasi (2013) stated that strict and formal language used in the classroom is a significant cause of anxiety. Thus, students grow nervous feeling when they encounter difficulties on linguistic components such as grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation when they are speaking a foreign language.

According to Zhang & Zhong (2012) low rating of peer assessment and comparing themselves to others creates ‘low self-perception of competence’ (p.28)

  The students who infest by anxiety will tend to regard others to become superior compared to themselves. Hashemi & Abbasi (2013) also urged that students who lose their positive image whenever they said something wrong produces demoralized effect when speaking in the classroom. They explained that lack of confidence leads the communication using the target language into a stressful event. Chowdhury

  (2016) also suggested that speaking anxiety was developed from the students’ worries of being prominent in front of others.

  Akkakoson (2016) revealed that the participants are aware that they need to speak using the target language. However, they are still lack of confidence to speak in English. According to Peirce (1995), lack of confidence makes the students feel inferior and afraid to interact with someone having full command of the language, e.g. native speaker (as cited in Hashemi & Abbasi, 2013, p.642). In his study, Melouah (2013) also suggested that students’ anxiety can be caused by less competent feeling when they compared themselves with native speakers of English.

  In non native speaker class, students will become more comfortable and less self- conscious if they are speaking in front of people they recognized (Bozavli & Gulmez, 2012, p.1042). Thus, it can be said that low self-esteem is responsible for creating foreign language anxiety.

  Negative attitudes toward classroom variables. Zhang & Zhong (2012)

  stated that there are many potential factors of anxiety in language learning which give effect to the learners themselves. They further added that one of the possible causes of anxiety that can be denied is variables in the classroom. They argued that variables in the classroom are mainly related to instructors, peers, and classroom practices. Wörde (2003) also urged that students are unable to keep up and feel left behind when the teacher frequently gives homework, refuses to use English, and speaks too fast. She also added that students have difficulties to grasp the rules and vocabulary because the class moved so quickly and they do not have sufficient time.

  Bailey (1991) indicated that students with higher proficiency feel great peer pressure because their linguistic superiority over others may cause hard feeling and jealousy from their peers. Thus, they may intentionally make an error, yet by which teachers probably find fault with them, or simply withdraw from the classroom interaction as a way out of their problem (as cited in Zhang & Zhong, 2012). Therefore, anxiety can be stemmed from teachers and peers’ attitude, style, role and their choice of keeping classroom environment.

  Fear of failing tests.

Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel (2013), in his study, stated that failing in the tests was one of the students’ sources of fear. They also added that

  students feel pressured and intimidated because the fear of tests. For example, when the participant cannot realize his/her full potential because of being afraid of the test.

  In addition, Tanveer (2007, as cited in Hashemi & Abbasi, 2013) agreed that most of the students unintentionally increased the pressures on themselves trying to remember what they learned before. He stated that students rehearsed the speech again and again in order to cope with anxiety. As a result, during the test, the students got stressed and nervous if they could not remember everything. In her study, Woodrow (2003) also added that one of his participants experienced information retrieval anxiety. She further explained that this type of anxiety made the person who has it become unable to remember anything. She suggested that throughout the language learning process, anxiety might keep the withdrawal memories of earlier prepared material from happening.

  Strategies to Cope with Anxiety

  Language learner has obligation to relieve his/her worry about speaking. The learner should know the strategies or how to deal with his/her speaking anxiety. The following are various scholars ’ recommendations for helping students to overcome their anxiety:

  Doing some preparation and practice. Demir (2015) suggested that

  language learners need to organize everything well before attending the class. They may prepare the outline before delivering a speech or set up the stuff long before the presentation or speech. Saidi (2015) also added that with minimal practice once or twice before presenting, it would develop students’ confidence. Practice is the most important part of maintaining confidence during a speech. He also explained that speaking proficiency could be improved with good practice and preparation. Woodrow (2006), in her study, stated that Japanese participants succeed to overcome his anxiety with persistence speaking training by try speaking the target language over and over again.

  Relaxation. Bryan (2001, as cited in Saidi, 2015) stated that there are many

  ways for students to gain comfortable feeling such as taking a deep breath and loosening the muscles. He also added that imagining ourselves to become a presenter who enjoys our job was a great way to reduce anxiety. Saidi (2015) added that talking and motivating ourselves by saying, “I am good, I always relax,”. will calm us down. By using these techniques, students shall be able to control and decrease their speaking anxiety. This is in line with a study by Demir (2015) where he stated that self-talk was a good strategy to reduce anxiety and fear.

  Creating positive atmosphere. Positive minds help students to reach their

  goals and encourage them to become successful (Swan, 2011, as cited in Akkakoson, 2015, p.77). Positive thinking could relieve stress and sharpen students’ focus and concentration during the course. Positive mind makes students think carefully so they would avoid mistakes that should not happen. Demir (2015) pointed out that this strategy is intended to replace frustrated or anxious feelings into a positive situation.

  He also explained that students can diminish anxiety by bringing out small or fascinating topics and distract attention from a tense circumstance to positive and pleasant cues.

  Daring self to make mistakes. Öztürk & Gürbüz(2014) stated that students

  who believe making errors are the natural thing do not feel worried during the course. He further added that these kinds of students could present positive effects and become a good role model for others. In addition, Saidi (2015) agreed that instead of becoming a drawback, making mistakes are an important step for learning.

  He insisted that students do not have to feel anxious while transferring the information in language learning. He also pointed out that making mistakes are a normal part of a human nature.

  Previous Studies on Anxiety

  Here (2012) carried out a study to investigate factors causing anxiety problems for English Department students on Interpersonal Speaking Class in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana Salatiga. The subjects were 40 students who were randomly chosen among students of Batch 2011. The result showed that nervousness is described as the main factor of anxiety followed by speech anxiety and fear of negative evaluation, while self-awareness is the third factor. These results suggested that educators needed to encourage students and help them in coping with anxiety by creating a fun atmosphere.

  Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) investigated foreign language classroom anxiety on 75 students at the University of Texas, and found that high anxiety participants in his study reported multiple sources of anxiety. It especially aimed to identify foreign language anxiety and interpret it on the specific anxiety factor. The findings of the study revealed that anxiety arises from three major sources: lack of preparation, an inferior feeling and reactions of other students. The results implied that language teachers should be aware of the existence of student anxiety and always consider the probability that it may affect student behavior and performance.

  Both of these studies share the same goal: to identify speaking anxiety factors. This present study also investigated speaking anxiety. The context is designed for FLA of SWCU students from 2016 cohort. The goal of this present study is to identify responsible factors of anxiety and how to deal with it. The instrument used was FLCAS questionnaire which has previously been adapted.

  This study was conducted to explore the tendency of anxiety in Speaking for Social Purposes classes in ELEP, FLA of Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. The study used qualitative-descriptive manner as it attempted to answer the following research questions: 1.

  What factors are responsible for students’ speaking anxiety? 2. What do students do to overcome their anxiety?

  The Context of the Study

  This study was conducted in the Faculty of Language and Arts in Salatiga, Central Java. The participants of the study were first-year students majoring in English Language Education. The first-year students were required to take Speaking for Social Purposes course in the new curriculum. This course prepared students to talk with people in various situations using the English language in a clear and acceptable way without trepidation. The course was designed using a mixed of function-based and task-based approach to allowed students to practice various English language functions in everyday communication tasks. The purpose of this course was to build up their confidence in facing different situations using the English language. Moreover, students would master the knowledge of constructing elements of English communication. This course would also challenge the students to improve their vocabulary and pronunciation through various games and speaking tasks (Speaking for Social Purposes syllabus semester 1

• – 2016/2017).

  Participants

  The participants of this study were 92 students of the 2016 cohort who were taking Speaking for Social Purposes class at the ELEP in FLA of Universitas Kristen SatyaWacana. 92 students were chosen because they were enough to represent a total of 188 students from 2016 cohort. This amount was also considered enough to get data. Purposive sampling for selecting the participants was used because they should meet certain criteria required. All the participants were freshmen when this study was conducted, and that was their first time taking the Speaking for Social Purposes course.

  Instruments of Data Collection

  The researcher preferred to use a set of mixed-questionnaire to collect the data required for this study. There were some considerations why the researcher used questionnaire. At first, a large number of data from lots of participants could be collected in a short period of time, distributing questionnaire could limit affect to its validity and reliability. Second, besides the participants were more familiar with the questionnaire form, the collected data were more objective. Third, it helped the researcher to make sure that the responses were detailed and accurate. The questionnaire was used to know the students’ anxiety sources. This questionnaire was adapted from Here (2012) to fit the present research context. The original questionnaire was from Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986)

  Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), which consisted of 33 items Likert-type with five possible responses in the English language. The scale had demonstrated internal reliability, achieving an alpha coefficient of .93 with all items producing significant corrected item-total scale correlations. The items of the questionnaire presented were reflective of communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. Trang

  (2012) stated Horwitz et al.’s theory of foreign language anxiety “has been widely accepted with subsequent research acknowledging the uniqueness of foreign language anxiety and providing evidence that the FLCAS is a re liable tool” (p.71). However, some changes were made in order to cover more possible factors of anxiety that occurred in language learning. The study used a mixed-type questionnaire. It consisted of 29 closed-ended questions translated into Indonesian. The items were categorized into several factors including (1)Being aware of mistakes, (2)Low self-perception of linguistic competence, (3)Negative attitudes toward classroom variables, and (4)Fear of failing tests. The responses to the closed-ended questions were divided into four: ‘sangat setuju’ (strongly agree), ‘setuju’ (agree), ‘tidak setuju’ (disagree), and ‘sangat tidak setuju’ (strongly disagree). ‘Neutral’ is excluded in order to get more reliable data. In addition, participants would answer the open-ended questions in the provided space.

  The questionnaire was piloted to 20 participants (25% of the total participants) before it was used for the main study. After doing some revision, the questionnaire was distributed to all 92 participants excluding the pilot participants.

  Data Collection Procedure

  First, the researcher asked for the participants ’ permission to distribute the questionnaire in Speaking for Social Purposes class. Second, the participants were informed that this questionnaire would not affect their grade and the researcher guaranteed them anonymity. Before distributing the questionnaire, the researcher revealed the purpose of the study and asked for the participants’ honest answers. This study was done in six different classes so that the researcher could get more than 92 questionnaires and carefully check 92 questionnaires which were thoroughly completed. Then, the questionnaire was collected and analyzed in a qualitative- descriptive manner.

  Data Analysis

  After collecting the entire questionnaires, the researcher read and started inputting the data to Microsoft Excel. The researcher also coded and categorized the data based on some important keywords. The researcher coded the close-ended data based on 4 alternative answers: ‘sangat setuju’ (strongly agree), ‘setuju’ (agree), ‘tidak setuju’ (disagree), and ‘sangat tidak setuju’ (strongly disagree), and grouped several items into four categories of factors leading to speaking anxiety that have been reviewed in the Literature Review section: being aware of mistakes, low self- perception of linguistic competence, negative attitudes toward classroom variables, and fear of failing tests. In order to know the results the researcher counted the average response of each item and each alternative category. Next, the data analysis results were displayed in figures and descriptions with the intention of making them easier to understand.

  The research questions asked, “What factors are responsible for students’ speaking anxiety?” and “What do students do to overcome their anxiety?”. Based on categories of problems that caused anxiety, the researcher found four factors that caused anxiety in Speaking for Social Purposes class. The four factors were being aware of mistakes, low self-perception of linguistic competence, negative attitudes toward classroom variables, and fear of failing tests. The researcher managed to combine the data to three subheadings. They were the overall factors leading to speaking anxiety, most common factors leading to speaking anxiety, and most c ommon participants’ strategy to reduce anxiety.

  Overall Factors Leading to Speaking Anxiety

  From the questionnaire, Statements 1, 2, 3, and 4 were related to the category of being aware of mistakes. Statements 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 dealt with the category of low self-perception of linguistic competence. The following category is negative attitudes toward classroom variables. Statements which were in line with this category were Statements 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. Meanwhile, the remaining Statements are included in the category fear of failing tests. They were shown in the Statements number 17, 18, 19, and 20. Figure 1 summarized the four categories of factors that caused anxiety problems in Speaking for Social Purposes class.

  Figure 1. Overall Factors Leading to Speaking Anxiety

  

3.27

  3.5

  3.17

  2.98 2.96 2.832.86

  2.79

  3

  2.70

  2.61

  2.60

  2.55

  2.42

  2.43

  2.38

  2.32

  2.28

  2.28

  2.25

  2.5

  2.12

  2.09

  2

  1.5

  1

  0.5 S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11 S12 S13 S14 S15 S16 S17 S18 S19 S20 Being aware of Low self-perception of Negative attitudes toward Fear of failing making mistakes linguistic of classroom variables (M=2.65) tests (M=2.56) (M=2.34) competence (M=2.72)

  According to Figure 1, the factors that caused speaking anxiety the most are those under the category ‘low self-perception of linguistic competence’ (M=2.72), followed by ‘negative attitudes toward classroom variables’ (M=2.65), ‘fear of failing tests

  ’ (M=2.56), and ‘being aware of mistakes’ (M=2.34). This indicated that the participants felt anxious mostly because they had low self-esteem in speaking a foreign language. The finding also showed that the participant had several negative attitudes toward English speaking classes which easily caused anxiety. Meanwhile, the participants were also quite afraid of failing tests and quite aware of their making mistakes, but those were not the most contributing factors to their anxiety. The finding implied a very contrasting result with what Here (2012) found. In her study, ‘negative attitudes toward classroom variables’ did not contribute too much to the students’ speaking anxiety. However, both studies showed the same results for ‘fear of failing tests’ which indicated that it has enough influence to make the participants anxious. The discussion on each category is provided below.

  Most Common Factors Leading to Speaking Anxiety Figure 2. Low self-perception of linguistic competence.

  11 S9.I feel less confident when I speak using

  48

  29 English.

  

4

  2 S8.I feel confident when I speak in

  36

  42 Speaking class.

  12 STS

  2 S7.I always feel that the other students

  25 TS

  49 speak English better than I do.

  16 S

  2 SS S6.I keep thinking that the other students

  29

  44 are better at languages than I am.

  17 S5.I feel very self-conscious about

  12 speaking English in front of other

  70

  10 students.

  

10

  20

  30

  40

  50

  60

  70

  80 Low self-perception of linguistic competence.

  In this category, Statement 5(M=2.98) showed that the participants felt very self-conscious about speaking English in front of other students. They tended to regard themselves negatively by thinking they were not that good at speaking English. Although the participants felt quite confident (S8,M=2.70 & S9,M=2.28), they still considered and thought that their friends’ skills in speaking English were better compared to themselves (S6,M=2.83 & S7,M=2.86). This finding was in line with a study by Zhang & Zhong (2012) which found that low rating of peer assessment and comparing themselves to others creates ‘low self-perception of competence’(p.28). The students who likely considered their peers superior compared to themselves might become anxious.

  Figure 3. Negative attitudes toward classroom variables.

  12 S16.I feel overwhelmed by the number of

  45

  29 rules you have to learn to speak English.

  6

  1 S15.I worry about getting left behind in

  14

  45 Speaking class.

  32

  7 S14.I start to panic when I have to speak

  25

  40 without preparation in Speaking class.

  20 STS S13.It frightens me when I do not

  6

  40 TS understand what the teacher saying in

  35

  11 English.

  S

  21 SS S12.I am afraid that the other students

  41

  28 will laugh at me when I speak English.

  2

  11 S11.It embarrasses me to volunteer

  41

  34 answers in Speaking class.

  6

  2

  16 S10.I feel worry of failing the class.

  29

  45

  10

  20

  30

  40

  50

  Negative attitudes toward classroom variables . Under this category, the

  finding revealed that the most responsible factor for students’ anxiety was the worry of failing speaking class (S10,M=3.27). Other statements in this category might function as the reasons why they felt worried about failing the class. The three most contributing reasons were worried about getting left behind (S15,M=3.17),panic when they had to speak without preparation in a language class (S14,M=2.79), and fear of failing to understand what the teacher was saying in English (S13,M=2.55).

  In regard to the category negative attitudes toward classroom variables, Zhang & Zhong (2012) argued that classroom variables were closely related to instructions, peers, and classroom practice. However, the findings in this study showed that the main factors leading to students’ anxiety were more related to instructions and self-perception of linguistic competence.

  The result was in line with what Worde (2003) stated. He proposed that students might be unable to keep up and feel left behind because the teacher or lecturer speaks too fast for the students to understand and it made them feel left behind. Likewise, the participants in this study might feel afraid of being left behind (S15) and of failing to understand what the teacher was saying in English (S13) because the teachers spoke so fast that students found difficulties in understanding the explanations or instructions.

  In ad dition, students’ low self-perception of their own linguistic competence might also contribute to the panic feeling when they needed to speak in English spontaneously (S14). They might not feel confident of their competence in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation ( Kayaoğlu & Sağlamel, 2013) or regarded themselves inferior as compared to their peers (Zhang & Zhong, 2012).

  Meanwhile, classroom practice like providing voluntary responses (S11, M=2.38) as well as memorizing and obeying classroom rules (S16, M=2.32), and peer factor like the fear that other students would laugh in response to one’s English (S12, M=2.12) did not seem to contribute too much to the students’ speaking anxiety.

  Figure 4. Fear of failing tests.

  11 S20.I feel nervous anytime there is a

  27

  42 speaking test.

  12 S19.I get nervous when I cannot

  3

  18 remember things I have prepared in STS

  51 advance.

  20 TS

  

8

S18.I feel pressured because of fear of S

  34

  36 failing the tests.

  SS

  14

  17 S17.The more I study for an English test,

  56

  13 the more I get confused.

  

6

  

10

  20

  30

  40

  50

  60

  Fear of failing tests. Nervousness due to the inability to remember things

  prepared in advance (S19,M=2.96) was the most problematic factor for students ’ fear of failing tests. It turned out that the fear of failing the tests somehow caused some of them to feel depressed (S18,M=2.61), and with similar average, some of the participants felt nervous anytime there was a speaking test (S20,M=2.60).

  Meanwhile, the participants did not really agree with Statement 17 that says , ‘The more I study for an English test, the more I get confused

  ’ (M=2.09). It could be inferred that studying for an English test did not make them confused, but it helped them prepare for the test.

  The above data might suggest that these participants tended to do some preparation before the test, but they were worried that they would not be able to recall what they had prepared on the test day. Actually, this was also in line with what Woodrow (2003) referred to as information retrieval anxiety. She explained that this type of anxiety made the person who had it become unable to remember anything. She added that throughout the language learning process, anxiety might keep the withdrawal memories of earlier prepared material from happening.

  Figure 5. Being aware of mistakes.

  13 S4.I am afraid of speaking English

  45

  32 because I often make mistakes.

  2

  10 S3.I get upset when I do not understand

  39 STS

  36 what the teacher is correcting.

  7 TS

  11 S2.I feel afraid when the teacher corrects S

  49

  27 every mistake that I made’ .

  SS

  

5

  8 S1.I do not worry about making mistakes

  47

  27 in Speaking class.

  10

  10

  20

  30

  40

  50

  60 Being aware of mistakes.

  The mean of this category is 2.34, which indicated that although it existed , the awareness of one’s own mistakes did not really contribute to his/her speaking anxiety. The highest mean under this category was gained by Statement 3, which highlighted the upset feeling when one could not understand what the teacher was correcting (S3, M=2.43). However, this might mean that they did not really feel that upset if they did not understand teachers’ feedback. The participants did not really agree if they did not feel worried about making mistakes in class (S1,M=2.42), which might be inferred that they actually did feel worried about making mistakes in class to some extent. The mean for Statement 2 ‘I feel afraid when the teacher corrects every mistake that I made’ is 2.28, which is indicative that the participants did not really felt afraid of the correction. As for Statement 4 ‘I am afraid of speaking English because I ofte n make mistakes’, the participants did not really agree with it

  (M=2.25), perhaps because they thought they did not make mistakes that often, or because they were not really afraid of making mistakes, so they just spoke English anyway.

  The findings under this category showed that although students were worried about making mistakes in class, they still tended to try to speak English anyway, without worrying too much about teacher’s correction/feedback. These students might know that, as Saidi (2015) stated, making mistakes was a normal part of a human nature.

  The data from the questionnaire showed that speaking using English might be a terrifying situation inducing nervousness. The researcher ’s attempt to find the factors responsible for students’ speaking anxiety has resulted in three leading factors and one minor factor. Three major factor leading to speaking anxiety were

  ‘low self- perception of linguistic competence’ (M=2.72), ‘negative attitudes toward classroom variables’ (M=2.65), and ‘fear of failing tests’ (M=2.65). The minor factor causing speaking anxiety was ‘being aware of mistakes’ (M=2.34).

Mo st Common Participants’ Strategies to Reduce Anxiety

  Now that the factors leading to speaking anxiety have been revealed, this section aimed to answer the second research question, ‘What do students do to overcome their anx iety?’. The discussion was based on the results of the second part of the questionnaire, which consisted of 9 closed-ended questions regarding the students’ possible strategies to overcome anxiety as recommended by various scholars. Table 1 showed the summary of the participants’ responses to the questionnaire.

Table 1. Participants’ strategies to reduce anxiety

  Used Succeed No Statement

  Yes No Yes No I have prepared the outline before

  1 delivering a speech.

  78

  14

  78

  2 I practice my speech over and over again

  80

  12

  72

  8 I take a deep breath to gain comfortable

  3

  84

  8

  59

  25 feeling.

  37

  55

  11

  26 4 I calm myself by relaxing my muscles.

  I imagine myself as a presenter who is 5 enjoying the performance to reduce

  18

  74

  5

  13 anxiety.

  I motivate myself by saying , “I can do this,

  6

  87

  5

  69

  18 I am relaxed, I can handle this ”.

  I use fascinating topics in order not to feel

  7 nervous.

  74

  18

  67

  7 I diminish the nervousness by making

  8 jokes.

  73

  13

  63

  10 I am not worried about making mistakes

  9 because it is natural.

  69

  23

  62

  7 According to Table 1, participants used four most common strategies to reduce anxiety: Statement 6 (I motivate myself by saying , “I can do this, I am relaxed, I can handle this ”.), Statement 3 (I take a deep breath to gain comfortable feeling), Statement 2 (I practice my speech over and over again), and Statement 1 (I have prepared the outline before delivering a speech). The discussion about these findings would be explained below. However, in terms of the effectiveness of the strategy used, the sequence became Statement 1 (I have prepared the outline before delivering a speech), Statement 2 (I practice my speech over and over again), Statement 6 (I motivate myself by saying

  , “I can do this, I am relaxed, I can handle this ”), and Statement 3 (I take a deep breath to gain comfortable feeling). The detailed discussion would follow the order of the effectiveness level of the undertaken strategy.

  I have prepared the outline before delivering a speech.

  There were 78 participants who tried to cope their anxiety by preparing the outline before delivering a speech and 78 participants succeeded to cope their anxiety. It was clear from the statistics, 100% participants succeeded to reduce their anxiety while presenting a prepared speech. This indicated that some of the participants still held the belief that preparation could minimize their anxiety and it was considered as the most effective strategy. The participants were aware of this, and they exercise their presentation by putting it into an outline. They might worry the presentation did not go well that they needed to work hard to overcome their fear. That was probably why some students overcome their anxiety by making an outline in order to improve students’ proficiency in the language.

  I practice my speech over and over again.