EFL Speaking Anxiety among Senior High School Students and Policy Recommendations

Abstract

This report drew on a larger study which was to describe and understand the sources of senior high school students' English language speaking anxiety at senior high schools in Jambi, Indonesia. The purpose of this paper was to report some findings from the qualitative interview data on the sources of senior high school students' English language speaking anxiety at one senior high school in Jambi, Indonesia. Data were collected through demographic profiles and semi-structured interviews with senior high school students. The demographic data were analysed descriptively while the interview data were transcribed and analysed line by line to generate and develop codes and themes. An analysis of the interview data revealed that five major themes were related to students' English language speaking anxiety, including (1) low speaking skill due to lack of vocabulary and grammar, (2) fear of negative responses from others, (3) low self-esteem to speak in English, (4) fear of being evaluated by teachers, and (5) cultural influences to speak English due to a more teacher-centred style. Suggestions and policy implications are also discussed.

Major Causes of Saudi Learners' Speaking Anxiety in EFL Classrooms

“…This contradicting finding toward the fear of making mistakes in front of teachers and classmates was related to the students' feelings and since anxiety is a fluctuating emotion that differs from one person to another, so different perspectives could happen. In line with the qualitative results of this study, Mukminin et al (2015) found in their study that participants perceived the teacher as more competent in English to the extent that they have the fear of making mistakes in front of him/her which consequently leads to their anxiety.…”

“…Researchers began to investigate the causes and effects of speaking anxiety on EFL learners (e.g., MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991;Yahya, 2013;Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2014;Mukminin et al, 2015). The following section provides a literature review of the different causes of speaking anxiety in the language classroom.…”

“…Yahya (2013) further claimed that college students lacked competency in speaking, and most have difficulties with pronunciation due to teachers' use of traditional methods of teaching, which made them unwilling to communicate in the target language. Mukminin et al (2015) added another view concerning the role of the teacher in causing language learning anxiety. The researchers mentioned that the fear of being evaluated by teachers was considered one of the causes shared by students.…”

EFL Learners’ Speaking Anxiety in an EOP Program

“…A number of studies on anxiety and its effects on speaking ability have been conducted and showed that anxiety played an important role in students' speaking ability; the higher students' anxiety in EFL, the more they tended to gain low speaking proficiency (Mukminin et al, 2015). However, most of the studies focus on either elementary (Chan & Wu, 2004;Alshahrani & Alshahrani, 2015;Dobson, 2012), high school (Gkonou, 2013;Mukminin, 2015;Ganschow and Sparks, 1996) and college level (Yugafiati, 2015;Aling, 2016;Woodrow, 2006;Wang, 2009).…”

A Training Model for Indonesian High School Debaters

“…Seterusnya, seperti yang dilaporkan pada harian The Jakarta Post (2016), Indonesia adalah negara dengan indeks literasi terendah ke-2 setelah Bostwana dari 61 negara yang diteliti oleh Central Connecticut State University. Lalu, mengenai kemampuan speaking di konteks Indonesia, menurut Mukminin, dkk (2015) pebelajar SMA cenderung tidak aktif dalam pelajaran speaking dan mereka tidak bisa bicara dalam bahasa Inggris baik dengan teman sekelas maupun dengan guru mereka. Hal ini tidak terlepas dari kenyataan bahwa di Indonesia, bahasa Inggris adalah sebuah bahasa asing (EFL).…”