STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY IN EFL CLASSROOMS.

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LIST OF TABLES

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LIST OF FIGURES

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is an introduction to the current study. It gives a description of background of the study in the field of foreign language classroom speaking anxiety. The subsequent sections present research questions, followed by aims, scope and significance of the study. Lastly, this chapter also concludes a brief discussion of research methodology and organization of paper.

1.1. Background of the Study

English is a compulsory subject to be taught for three years each at Junior High Schools and Senior/Vocational High Schools (BNSP, 2006). Since the implementation of the 1994 Curriculum, it also has been an elective subject in Primary Schools. There are also tendencies in some big cities where English is taught from kindergarten level (Lie, 2007).

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Students’ speaking proficiency has been a serious concern in EFL teaching. In several studies, it was reported that the students have not attained a good level of English speaking proficiency (Widiati & Cahyono, 2006).Widiati & Cahyono (2006) reported that many teachers had witnessed their students’ inhibition in attempting to speak English in the classroom. Several studies showed that learners do not feel comfortable when they try to perform their oral competence, especially when they have to conduct it in front of other people (Sugiharti, 2008; Damayanti, 2009; Ariani, 2010). The feelings of embarrassment, being afraid of making mistakes, nervousness, and anxiety in the classroom speaking activity are some factors that were experienced by some foreign language students. It is a “mental block” that may hinder them from achieving their goals in learning a foreign language (Horwitz, et al., 1986: 125).

A student will probably avoid speaking most of the time when he or she believes that one must speak in English correctly (Liu, 2007). Some learners might prefer to keep quiet during English lesson because they are reluctant to speak in English. Anxious students tend to think about negative evaluations from other people. In order to manage this problem, teachers should find a way to make the English learning context less stressful for the students and use suitable teaching methods that can help their student in reducing their anxiety in foreign language classrooms (Horwitz et al., 1986).

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functions as an inhibitor in language learning (McIntyre & Gardner, 1985). In her study in China, Liu (2006) reported that the students are afraid to perform themselves in front of other people. They believed that they must understand the meaning of every word they speak. She mentioned some cause of the students’ anxiety such as afraid of being laughed at by others, lack of vocabulary, low in English proficiency, lack of preparation, and lack of practice.

The latter cause was also experienced by most English students in Indonesia (Lie, 2007). They were lack of exposure to English, except for some students coming from the middle and upper socio-economic classes who have the opportunity to enhance their English proficiency beyond that of their peer level through other means such as private courses, computer-aided language instruction, and exposure through Western-influenced TV channels, foreign movies, and networks with expatriate communities (ibid.).

Some studies of foreign language anxiety in Indonesia show that the there are negative effects of anxiety toward language learning processes. Marwan (2007) in his experimental study; reported a significant effect of anxiety to students’ foreign language learning. He stated that the feeling of anxiety may

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Sugiharti (2007) and Ariani (2009) showed that although the anxious students actually have prepared themselves for every speaking class, many of them still experienced anxiety, especially in front of other people. They lack of exposure on English, moreover, both teacher and students still use their mother tongue in the classroom activities (Ariani, 2009).

These chains of studies pointed out how anxiety may affect language teaching and learning process. It also shows if there are still many spaces can be explored of how anxiety occurs in language teaching and learning process. In Indonesia, there are only small number studies which took the subject of foreign language anxiety. Therefore, to enrich the insight, this study took part in this foreign language teaching and learning issue.

This study investigated how anxiety in English as Foreign Language (EFL) learning occurred. It examined students’ speaking anxiety as one contributive factor to English teaching and learning problem in Indonesia. The study explored speaking anxiety of vocational high school students in EFL classrooms.

1.2. Research Questions

The study is conducted to answer the following questions:

1. What are the levels of speaking anxiety experienced by the students? 2. What are the sources of students’ speaking anxiety?

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1.3. Aims of the Study

Based on the research questions above, the study aims to:

1. Investigate the levels of speaking anxiety experienced by the students. 2. Investigate the source of students’ speaking anxiety.

3. Investigate the strategies that students apply to reduce their anxiety.

1.4. Scope of the Study

This study comprises three parts of discussion concerning students’ speaking anxiety in a vocational high school in Bandung. It investigates the students’ speaking anxiety level, the causes of students’ speaking anxiety and students’ speaking anxiety coping strategies.

1.5. Significance of the Study

This study is expected to be a considerable input to enrich the literature of foreign language classroom anxiety, especially in the area of students’ speaking performance in high school level. Furthermore, it can be used as a reference for future research of foreign language anxiety, i.e. English.

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Additionally, English learners can help themselves by finding apropos solutions to reduce their speaking anxiety in English classes.

Finally, this study hopefully will be able to encourage the policy makers to consider the existence of anxiety and all its contingencies in English teaching and learning processes. Thus, to support the teachers as well as the students in creating successful English teaching and learning processes.

1.6. Research Methodology

1.6.1. Research Design

This study describes the phenomenon of speaking anxiety experienced by students of a vocational high school. Therefore, it employs a descriptive method because it can give a depth description from the subjects view toward the English speaking anxiety phenomenon (Cresswell, 1994).

1.6.2. Participants

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1.6.3. Data Collection Procedure

The first step in this study was to administer an open-ended questionnaire to each participant. This was to indentify the speaking anxiety level in the EFL lessons. Based on the result, some students were selected to be interviewed, to find the information of the source of their anxiety and also their strategies in coping with anxiety. Afterward, the result of the interview was analyzed and presented.

1.6.4. Data Analysis

To find out the students’ speaking anxiety level, the FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale)—33-questions questionnaire developed by Horwitz, et al (1986)—was administered to the 23 participants. The data then analyzed and presented in percentages. As for the sources of anxiety which was obtained from the interview, they were analyzed by Young’s (1991) six potential sources of anxiety, and with other possible explanation from Ohata (2005). Finally, students speaking anxiety coping strategies was analyzed by Kondo and Ying-Ling (2004) findings.

1.7. Organization of Paper Chapter I Introduction

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Chapter II Literature Review

This chapter contains a survey towards many researchers’ writings about speaking in foreign language classrooms, the nature of anxiety, the construct of foreign language anxiety, sources of foreign language anxiety, anxiety effects in foreign language learning and anxiety coping strategies.

Chapter III Research Methodology

This chapter discusses the methodology in conducting the study. The methodology involves the research design, clarification of terms, site and participants, data collection procedure and data analysis.

Chapter IV Results and Discussion

This chapter presents data analysis and discussion of the findings gained from questionnaire and interview. It covers students’ speaking anxiety level, the sources of students’ speaking anxiety, and students’ anxiety coping strategies.

Chapter V Conclusion and Suggestions

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The description of how the study was conducted is presented in this chapter. The methodology involves research design, clarification of key terms, site and respondents, data collection procedure and data analysis.

3.1.Research Design

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3.2 Clarification of the Key Terms

Here is some explanation of some important terms in this study:

 Speaking Anxiety, refers to a feeling of apprehension, nervousness, or

worry that interrupts students’ speaking performance just before or

while they are performing English speaking tasks in class (Tasee, 2009).

 Foreign Language, in this research paper the term refers to any

language other than the first language learned.

 Language Anxiety is feeling of tension or nervousness while learning a

second/foreign language (Horwitz et al., 1986).

 Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) is the 33

questionnaire items created by Horwitz, et al (1986) to measure foreign

language learners’ anxiety in classroom setting.

3.3.Site and Participants

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3.4.Data Collection Procedure

In the beginning, twenty three participants were asked to take the FLCAS questionnaire. The selection of these participants is based on several criteria;

students’ classroom participation, attitude toward English class, English speaking

proficiency, English test scores, and their length of study. Due to the accuracy of the assessment and selection was fully given to their English teacher.

Afterward, the questionnaires were collected and the answers were analyzed. The answers were presented in percentage to show the participants speaking anxiety level. Based on the analysis some participants were selected to be interviewed.

The next step of this study was an interview. It was to seek the possible source or their anxiety and how they cope with their anxiety. The interview was administered to eight selected participants. The answers were analyzed based on

some experts’ theory and compare with several studies result. Finally, all of the

results of each steps of this study were presented in Chapter IV.

3.3.1 Questionnaire

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The students’ response on this 5-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Agree” (SA),”Agree” (A), “Neither Agree nor Disagree” (NA), “Disagree” (D),

and “Strongly Disagree” (SD). To the suit of the participants’ language learning

situation context the word “foreign language” used in the original FLCAS were consistently replaced with “English”. For example, the original FLCAS item “I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my foreign language class”

was modified to be “I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my

English class”. All 33 items were translated into Indonesian before it was

administered to the participants.

3.3.2 Interview

Based on the questionnaire analysis, semi-structured interviews were administered to eight selected students. The interview considered to fit this study because it tried to find freer respond from the participants of some basic idea that need to cover. This type of interview was required to get the “in-depth

information”, as it allows researcher to ask “follow-up questions” about the

participants’ answers on the questionnaire (Alwasilah, 2008: 154). The interview that was recorded and transcribed to avoid “inaccuracy and incompleteness” data

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3.5.Data Analysis

The 33 items in the FLCAS were analyzed and presented in the percentage. The percentages were rounded to the nearest whole number. For the purpose of this analysis, the responses to “Strongly agree” (SA) and “Agree” (A) were combined to create an overall score of agreement with the question, and the sum of responses to “Disagree” (D) and “Strongly disagree” (SD) were similarly

calculated to gain a measure of disagreement.

These 33 items in the questionnaire are reflective to communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation. However, in the previous chapter it was verified if students’ speaking anxiety in this study is a part

of communication apprehension in English classes. Fourteen items in the FLCAS were considered related to speaking anxiety. The item numbers were: 1, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, 18, 20, 23, 24, 27, 30, 31, and 33. Therefore, using the 5-point Likerts’ Scale the possible score will be ranging from 14 to 70.

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a) Students whose score on FLCAS was one or more standard deviation (+1<) above the mean were categorized to be High Anxiety.

b) Students whose score on FLCAS was one or more standard deviation (–1<) under the mean were categorized to be Low Anxiety.

c) Students whose score on FLCAS was between those two score were categorized to be Moderate Anxiety

Confirming students’ answer in the questionnaire, an interview was employed as the second instrument. It gave additional information about students’ answers and elicited the sources and strategies concerning their anxiety in speaking English. Their answers were analyzed based on the sources of anxiety of that summarized by Young (1991) and Ohata (2005).

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents the conclusion and suggestions drawn from the results of the study. This current chapter concerns on what was found in the previous chapter.

5.1 Conclusions

The result shows that most of the students are at moderate level of anxiety.

Students’ response toward FLCAS proves that nearly all of them responded that

they are inhabited by anxiety in speaking performances. Therefore, it is important to control the level of speaking anxiety due to its role in impeding students speaking performance.

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Based on the analysis, it seems that students’ solution in lessen their speaking anxiety is by supporting themselves, taking a more relaxing activities, asking for help from friends, and or even giving up. Therefore, language teachers should act as facilitators in the language classroom. They help the students by creating supportive and relaxing classroom atmosphere, encouraging students to build more confidence, giving a friendly error correction, or sharing their language learning past experience with the students and so on.

5.2 Suggestions

In helping their students to cope with their speaking anxiety, English teachers should be aware of the existence of anxiety among their students from the first beginning. They need to be more sensitive to their students’ negative behaviors and attitudes towards the lesson and try to interpret them as the

manifestations of students’ difficulties their language learning. Teachers should

take this as an important issue in their classes and need to find solutions to help their students. As the findings suggest that the anxiety problems occur in students’ language learning process and they felt alone with their anxious feeling.

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On the administration of FLCAS if the result indicates that students experienced a little anxiety, teacher need to make sure it will not escalate as the class proceeds. On the contrary, if it indicates a high level of anxiety, teachers need to set some adjustments on their lesson and classroom environment. It is useful for English teachers to design various classroom activities to help their students to overcome their anxiety in speaking English. According to von Wörde (1998) activities such as skits, plays or games will help students to reduce their stress and fear in language learning, particularly speaking. Previously Young (1991) had summarized some experts’ suggestions toward teaching techniques in creating a supportive and non-threatening classroom for language students. English teachers can use those techniques based on the source of their students’ anxiety.

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STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY IN EFL CLASSROOMS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES