Huflit students opinions of some suggested solutions for overcoming their public speaking anxiety graduation paper, major english study

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HCMC UNIVERISTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION PAPER ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOME

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HCMC UNIVERISTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GRADUATION PAPER

ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOME SOLUTIONS

TO OVERCOME THE FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

SKILL FOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES –

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Instructor: Ms Quan Vu Ngoc Lien (M.A)

Student: Nguyen Kim Tien

Student ID: 15DH710578

Major: English Study

Ho Chi Minh City, June 18 th , 2019

TABLE OF CONTENT Content Page

DECLARATION iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v

ABBREVIATION LIST vi

ABSTRACT vii

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 HUFLITers’ Pubic Speaking Anxiety 1

1.3 Objectives 1

1.4 Organization 2

1.5 The research question(s) 2

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 The definition of Public Speaking Skill 3

2.2 The importance of Public Speaking Skill 3

2.3 The theory and different symptoms of Public Speaking Anxiety 4

2.4 Some possible reasons 5

2.5 Some suggested solutions 6

3 METHODS 8

3.1 Overview 8

3.2 Description of the Subjects & Setting 8

3.3 Procedures of Data Collection 8

3.4 Statistical Treatment 10

4 RESULTS 11

4.1 The groups of age of learners participating in PS in the total of three classes 11

4.2 The gender of learners in the total three PS classes 12

4.3 The learners’ attitude towards PS 13

4.4 The reason why learners studied PS 14

4.5 Whether students find it difficult to give a speech due to fear or not 15

4.6 The learners’ attitudes towards minimizing PSA by using some useful strategies and seeking some professional help 16

4.7 The most effective strategies for reducing PSA selected by students 17

4.8 Students’ comments on the effectiveness of applying the chosen ways 19

5 DISCUSSION 24

6 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 33

6.1 Purpose of the Study 33

6.2 Findings and Explanation 33

6.3 Limitations 34

6.4 Recommendations 35

Appendix 41

References 45

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The research would not been possible to complete without receiving support, assistance, instruction and contributions of these special people The researcher would like to take this opportunity to express the appreciation to the following:

Department of Foreign Languages, HCMC University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology for allowing this research to be recognized

Ms Quan Vu Ngoc Lien (M.A), who is an English teacher at HUFLIT and instructor of this research, provided valuable advice, feedback, tips, untiring assistance, direction, encouragement, perceptive comments, suggestions, professional guidance, support, and ideas to finish this research completely

HUFLIT’ students, who have taken part in this research as conducting the research questionnaire with the prominent contribution and assistance

Mr Tran Thanh Tu (M.A), whose significant support and guidance have aided and facilitated the process of forming this research

Friends and family, for great spiritual support and encouragement throughout this research

3 PSA: Public Speaking Anxiety

4 EFL: English as Foreign Language

in front of audience was the most plausible solution for them to be more and more assured Moreover, with the ways consisting of doing exercise (take a deep breathing), watching recordings to detect the errors, or having a backup (note card, cue card) were also assessed highly at about 97%, 96%, and 95% respectively for English major students to defeat public speaking apprehension and possible to face audience irrespective of the quantity of people in performing a presentation

self-Keywords: anxiety, confidence, fear, public speaking

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background:

Today, it is known that PS skill is one of the essential skills for many university and college students due to its benefits not only during the time they are studying but also in their long careers Therefore, many universities and colleges including HUFLIT have applied this subject into their education and training system However, almost all students always find it difficult to acquire skills for delivering a good speech; thus, they suffer the nervous status

1.2 HUFLITers’ Pubic Speaking Anxiety:

PSA is a common psychological apprehension for university students that affects to learners' ability of emotional expression, especially for English major students at HUFLIT Although many studies have been done on a large number of ways suggested to help them solve this problem and improve their PS skills in universities and colleges, there has been no studies made at HUFLIT until now and almost students still feel some degree of anxiety before giving a presentation because most of HUFLITers have to use the foreign language like English to present in their workshops As a result, students often avoid performing a presentation or activities relating to PS in front of a crowd of people Hence, in this study, the researcher demonstrated to clarify that PS is truly a terrifying and horrible matter for students including English major students as well as paid more attention to the aspects that may

be important to help HUFLIT’ students in their PS skills by introducing them some effective strategies, so they can gain a lot of experience and confidence

1.3 Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to focus on analyzing as well as providing some several ways of reducing high levels of PSA for students at HUFLIT Moreover, how students' attitudes and thoughts towards suggested solutions for improving their

confidence when making presentations in EFL classes were also considered The expressions of agreement in each method were compared while their attitudes and thoughts were employed to support the methods supplementarily

1.4 Organization:

A scientific report will be structured in six sections The first section will be an overview introduction about PS and the aim of the study The structure of the report will also be presented in section 1 In section 2, foreign literature will be reviewed including its significance and the signs of PS fear followed by some further ideas that were stated by previous researchers for improving students’ PS skills Literature review will provide the base to formulate the research methodology in section 3 In section 4, the results will be presented, and some effective ways of how to overcome PSA will be pointed out in section 5 Finally, conclusion and recommendations will be proposed in the terminal section

1.5 The research question(s):

The following questions will be analyzed to achieve mentioned objectives:

1 Whether English major students of HUFLIT find it difficult to give a speech due to fear or not?

2 What are the most effective strategies/ the approaches for reducing public speaking anxiety selected by students?

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is written for a better understanding of the definition of PS and what learners get from learning PS skills, particularly in this survey, the theory of PSA and some symptoms of that fear in colleges and universities Moreover, some possible causes of PSA are also mentioned to define the brief solutions of previous studies that may be used to deal with anxiety when learning PS

1 The definition of Public Speaking Skill:

PS skill (also known as oration) is the process or action of delivering a speech directly to an audience with clarity and confidence for information conveyance The objective of the discourse may be to teach, engage, or impact the audience The speaker performs in front of a group of people that he/she knows (for example, in a family celebration) or a completely alien crowd Laura Spencer (2018) defined that it

is fundamentally an introduction that is given live in front of the group of audience PS can cover a wide assortment of diverse subjects Speakers in PS regularly utilize visual aids in the form of an electronic slideshow to supplement the discourse and make the audience more curious

2 The importance of Public Speaking Skill:

Over the years, the importance of PS is widely diversified in human daily lives When people can speak well in public, they can absolutely promote their careers, develop their business and form some strong cooperation Many areas of life often require PS skills such as guidance or sales experts Even for jobs that do not involve

PS skills in job descriptions, candidates will be eye-catching, more highly appreciated, and make a better impression on many employers if they possess this skill Garside (2002) demonstrated the importance of learning PS skills for students for specific reasons Firstly, during the time of the process of preparing the presentation, students

do not only gain knowledge but also increase their confidence when presenting Confidence always makes the candidates stand out from others and gives them a

favorable opportunity to advance in their careers Moreover, having good PS skills, people can always convey their ideas or thoughts in the clearest and most effective way It is a great chance for people to prove their knowledge as an expert in their field

of work Finally, the more people get promoted in their work, the more employees they need to lead, so the demand for PS skills and its confidence is increasing because many leaders at a high level need to pass on their opinions and motivate people to act on their ideas Being able to speak well in public can be a good element to help them assert themselves for promotion Indeed, Hackman and Johnson (2004) claimed that impressive PS skills are necessary for all leaders

3 The theory and different symptoms of Public Speaking Anxiety:

What is PSA? PSA (also called Glossophobia) is defined as a state of nervousness, discomfort, fear, terror or fright about a situation that speaker must communicate with or deliver a speech to the others in public caused by the feelings of insecurity or not controlling the situations The person having the high level of PSA often avoids oral communication or performance situations, so these situations make them distressed and upset It is described as the number one fear of people, especially among university students Spijck (2011) implied that according to his research:

“Almost eighty out of every hundred people experienced PSA at a small or large scale Each four out of ten individuals ranked PS fear as one of their pinnacle three fears, regularly a fear more ghastly than demise, divorce and unemployment”

In order to get a better understanding of what anxiety is, Kelly (2002, p.54) also described anxiety or fear as “a general feeling of apprehension including hyper-vigilance, increased sympathetic nervous system activity and difficulty concentrating” People having PS concern can be seen easily through many different symptoms of PSA including palpitations, sweating, gastrointestinal discomfort, diarrhea, muscle tension, and confusion (North & Rives, 2001) In addition, Craig N Sawchuk, Ph.D., L.P reported that:

Before, during or after a speech, it is very common for people that have one or all of following physical reactions: panic, nervousness, increased heartbeat, shaking, upset stomach, shortness of breath, blushing, dry mouth, and excessive perspiration (Markway, Carmin, Pollard, & Flynn, 1992)

4 Some possible reasons:

In order to find out the reasons behind this fear, Beatty (1988), Beatty and Frieland (1990) created questionnaires to seek the main reasons The results of the questionnaires from his survey for most English major students having the fear of PS came from numerous sources such as the lack of practice, and confidence, the feeling

of insecurity when being teased by other people for making mistakes, the shortage of language proficiency, and so on According to Price (1991), particularly from his questionnaire, all subjects also confirmed that they were afraid of speaking foreign language in front of many other students Another reason of speech anxiety that Seim,

R W., Waller, S A., and Spates C R (2010) pointed out in their test results is giving a speech with a completely unfamiliarity Besides, the missing of preparation also makes students feel inconfident during the speech If there is not enough preparation or material for the presentation, the speaker will easily get stuck and forget the content because he/she does not have an overview of the topic In addition, being unable to cope with unexpected situations is another culprit of PS anxiety PSA is also seen in those with proficient foreign language skills because one of students may lack skills to express their ideas impressively and have a feeling of anxiety or discomfort (Bippus,

AM, & Daly, JA, 1999) In order to get a clearer overview of all reasons of PSA which influences negatively students in foreign language classes, (Zdena, K & Gabriela, P, 2017) investigated the sources of foreign language speaking anxiety of 154 Iranian

PSA is a common form of apprehension It can extend from slight anxiety to paralyze fear and freeze Numerous individuals with this fear avoid PS situations altogether, or they endure them with shaking hands and a brittle voice

EFL learners by requiring them to fill in a PSA questionnaire which was developed based on the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz E K., Horwitz M B., and Cope (1986) They showed the results from their research with several sources, but the main significant reasons of speech anxiety causing students’ anxiety were “the fear of making mistakes” (81%), “the fear of negative evaluation” (78%), and “the lack of vocabulary knowledge” (72%) Indeed, Yahya (2013) carried out a similar survey that implied “fear of negative evaluation” was one of the most prominent causes of PS apprehension Moreover, Lui (2006: 23-25) examined the root

of PS fear from 98 EFL language students and the findings stated that there was a large number of different sources that caused anxiety for them during their PS courses including the lack of practice and preparation, the limitation of vocabulary, the insufficiency of grammar knowledge, the fear of making mistakes, the fright of negative evaluation, the low level of proficiency, short-term memory, the obsession of being the focus of attention, the inability to express ideas, poor pronunciation, personality, shyness, the fear of being ridiculed, the unfamiliarity with topics, environment and audience

5 Some suggested solutions:

In general, the fear of giving a public speech can come from many causes They can lead to the consequence that more and more students try to avoid some specialized courses that require oral presentations People can even decide to choose a job they do not love or skip the promotion just because they are frightened of speaking in the public or often have to deliver a presentation in front of a group of people (Mark, B & Mandy, G, 2018) Therefore, many researchers have taken this issue into consideration

to discover some effective strategies to overcome PSA In order to figure out suitable measures, Bippus, A M., and Daly, J A (1999) studied the main causes of the fear of

PS, then many plausible methods to cope with this fear Among them, one of the best

ways to improve PS skills was practicing because the lack of preparation and perseverance is the main reason for stress in PS If the speakers prepare their speech thoroughly, they will be more confident to be able to clearly visualize their topics and contents Besides, Gutgold, N D., and Grodziak, E M (2013) proposed another way

to control the tension when speaking in public which was using smart phones to record assignments at home, and then detecting and correcting mistakes in the speech for better performances This method has been used for decades to help students review their speech as a speaker To define the strategy to overcome the fear of PS better, Adams, S (2012) pointed out the importance of understanding the documents and the audience In the similar way, worrying about PS is common, especially when people know very little about their topics and audience PS worries have a close relationship with the uncertainty about audience and subject matter Moreover, practicing speech in front of the mirror is also a beneficial way to improve speaking skills According to Adams, S (2012), some standard advice could be used to overcome anxiety when talking, namely, selecting familiar materials or focusing on a friendly face to create a feeling of comfort By the same token, speakers could also try some relaxing exercises such as deep breathing that can help reduce anxiety From the research of Raja, F (2017), he revealed that providing proper counseling, instruction and coaching could help students enable to face with the PSA He advised that teachers should use games and enjoyable activities to create a relaxing atmosphere in order to promote PS skills and generate the security for speaking in English within a cooperative environment Moreover, Ron, K (2001) suggested that it is necessary for students to have a speech outline on some small sheets of papers that can decrease the anxiety of being afraid of forgetting what they are going to say or having their minds in blank

Chapter 3: METHODS

3.1 Overview:

For accurate results, the researcher looked at many factors affecting data during the collection process The second-year major English students of HUFLIT's Department of Foreign Languages were selected as the research subjects with a total of

73 students out of three classes This research was conducted in the second semester of the second year because learners had to learn to speak in public during this period After the study, the researcher could also rely on their ideas to carry out this research

to help learners find ways to improve their PS skills

3.2 Description of the Subjects& Setting:

The subject for this study consisted of 73 participants who were students at the second level majoring in English language from Department of Foreign Language at HUFLIT in the academic year 2018-2019 All of the students were sophomore and spoke Vietnamese as their mother tongue They were aged between 20 and 22 at the time of this study They participated in the survey by answering all questions of the questionnaire about their experience and opinions on overcoming PSA

3.3 Procedures of Data Collection:

This was a small-scale exploration study conducted to analyze the needs of PS class students at the university level to build strategies to overcome PSA Research was done by quantitative descriptive research method The researcher developed the questionnaire that based on reviewing the relevant literature and observing the previous researches Creswell (1994) defined that quantitative research as the interpretation of phenomena by collecting numerical data analyzed by mathematical-based methods The method that was used to conduct the study included a questionnaire as the main data collection tool Using self-administered questionnaire distributed to 73 university students collected data

To compare the effectiveness of other methods to overcome the fear of PS, quantitative data in Google forms app allows participants to comment on the effectiveness of different ways to reduce anxiety Quantitative data was collected through close-ended and open-ended question items close to the assessment with the format In the second semester, English students studied PS 1 at school, and then, students were given an online questionnaire comprising of eight emotional measurement questions called Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) related to PS Respondents were required to indicate to which those ideas can be applied to them by marking whether they Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree with each statement or not The open-ended question was given to learners at the end of questionnaire to explore their perspectives on the advantages of selected solutions The answers about their opinions and experience in this question were recorded to clarify ways of anxiety reduction that helped the researcher to collect information in detail The questionnaire was completed without any personal identification to ensure anonymity and increase the probability of honest answers In addition, the survey results were collected on a percentage basis and compared between each answer to know each learner's perspective on the effectiveness of applying each method in PS The survey was conducted online via e-mail and took 5-

10 minutes to complete Participants had a week to finish the questionnaire to the researcher

The designed questionnaire for English major students concluded items with three primary contents:

• Item 1, 2 showed the information of learners participating to answer the questionnaire

• Item 3, 4, 5 indicated the learners’ attitudes and reasons towards studying PS skills

• Item 6, 7, 8 referred to the learners’ attitudes towards applying useful strategies for minimizing the PSA

3.4 Statistical Treatment:

To evaluate the effectiveness of several methods, it is necessary to analyze which ones are more preferable Additionally, through the Google Form Application and Microsoft Excel data analysis tool package, statistics were collected and analyzed

to display results

Chapter 4: RESULTS

The questionnaire includes eight questions written in English, and it needed to

be responded based on the readers’ views The researcher delivered online questionnaire to the participants of three classes through the groups on Facebook and all copies were gathered The researcher was able to obtain lots of information on the attitudes of learners in learning PS skills as well as the solutions for learners The statistical analysis and the result of data analysis were shown clearly in the following charts

4.1 The groups of age of learners participating in PS in the total of three classes:

Pie chart 4.1: The groups of age of learners participating in PS in the total

of three classes

The pie chart 4.1 summarizes the quantity of students attending three PS classes

in the second semester during the period of four months from February to June in

2019 There were 69 learners (95%), who were 20 years old, studied in PS courses It

is noticeable that they were sophomores, who were studying PS 1, which was the obligatory subject in this semester It can be also concluded from the pie chart that the small group of age of 21-22 years old at 4% and 1% correspondingly had PS lessons

4.2 The gender of learners in the total three PS classes:

Pie chart 4.2: The gender of learners in the total three PS classes

The pie chart 4.2 shows data about the amount of male and female learners took part in three PS classes There were nearly three times as many female as male in PS courses that made the number of women participants much higher than men with 59 of female learners (81%), compared to 14 of male learners (19%)

19%

81%

Male Female

4.3 The learners’ attitude towards PS:

Pie chart 4.3: The learners’ attitude towards PS

The pie chart 4.3 examines the learners’ interests in learning PS at HUFLIT As

is observed from the chart, more than a half of learners (58%) felt interested in learning PS even though this subject not only required students to be confident but also acquire many PS skills On the other hand, the number of learners who asserted that studying PS was both helpful and useful made up 39% Surprisingly, the percentage of students who felt not only difficult but also bored when learning PS was a very small number of 3%

4.4 The reasons why learners studied PS:

Pie chart 4.4: The reasons why learners studied PS

The graph 4.4 illustrates the reasons for studying PS of the participants It is clear that the proportions of these students who were constrained to learn PS as a compulsory subject in the course, accounting for nearly a half (46%) of the total By contrast, the number of learners studying PS due to its excitement and benefits was not small with 12% and 33% respectively Especially, there were just 9% of participants wishing to learn more skills for their study

4.5 Whether students find it difficult to give a speech due to fear or not: Pie chart 4.5: Whether students find it difficult to give a speech due to fear

or not

The pie chart 4.5 compares the number of students in HUFLIT if they expressed agreement or disagreement with the finding that PS is hard to present in front of the crowd because of suffering PSA Overall, it can be seen that in general, there was a dominant percentage of HUFLIT learners who had experienced PSA in their classes, and it rose up to 78.1% from the data collected in the survey It appears that almost every major students of HUFLIT always felt frightened and nervous before, during or after they give a presentation That leads to the option ‘YES’ (agree) as a larger proportion, accounting for 78.1 % of the total approximately 57 out of 73 students while the rest felt confident (21.9%)

78.1 % 21.9 %

Yes No

4.6 The learners’ attitudes towards minimizing PSA by using some useful strategies and seeking some professional help:

Pie chart 4.6 The learners’ attitudes towards minimizing PSA by using

some useful strategies and seeking some professional help

The pie chart 4.6 shows the percentages of three different attitudes of 73 learners towards improving their speeches in PS courses The number of learners with positive attitudes is rather high comparing to the ones with negative and neutral learning manner In another words, these numbers do not exceed the researcher’s expectation It is clear to see that the quantity of learners who have positive attitude greatly dominated the others with 86%

POSITIVE 86%

NEGATIVE 3%

NEUTRAL 11%

4.7 The most effective strategies for reducing PSA selected by students:

Table 4.7: The most effective strategies for reducing PSA selected by students

11 (15%)

0 (0%)

0 (0%)

42 (58%)

4 (5%)

0 (0%)

47 (64%)

3 (4%)

0 (0%)

Give your

speech to

another person

18 (25%)

38 (52%)

14 (19%)

3 (4%)

40 (55%)

2 (3%)

0 (0%)

Focus on a

friendly face

(good

17 (23%)

35 (48%)

18 (25%)

3 (4%)

33 (45%)

10 (14%)

0 (0%)

Talk to yourself

in front of the

mirror

35 (48%)

33 (45%)

4 (5%)

1 (1%)

Focus on the

material, not the

audience

5 (7%)

27 (37%)

34 (47%)

7 (10%)

44 (60%)

9 (12%)

2 (3%)

Have lecturers’

help

50 (68%)

23 (32%)

0 (0%)

0 (0%)

The table 4.7 shows among ten ways for reducing depression, practicing the speech accounts for 85% (65 students) strongly agreed and 15% (11 students) agreed out of the total The figure for receiving teachers’ help tends to be fairly similar to practicing the speech with 73 students (100%) agreed of the total number, but its amount of strong agreement is slightly smaller in terms of practicing Noticeably, doing a light exercise, watching recordings, and having a backup are the next most significant solutions that participants gave the approval with a prominent proportion of

the total of 97% 96%, 95% correspondingly while the option of just focusing on the material has the smallest amount of approbation which is under a half of students with 47%

4.8 Students’ comments on the effectiveness of applying the chosen ways:

Table 4.8: Students’ comments on the effectiveness of applying the chosen ways

The open-ended question below was conducted to explore participants' general attitudes, feelings, and opinions on the benefits of the chosen ways collected through the survey Their answers were gathered and analyzed into the number In other words, the researcher summarized all the same ideas for the most useful methods selected by learners into the number through Microsoft Excel based on their comments on the open-ended question The researcher attempted to get an in-depth opinion from participants in order to understand clearly what they thought without controlled settings

number

of students

Practice your speech

before you give it

1 I will be more confident, speak more fluently and talk as sharing, not learn by heart

3

2 My spirit will be better if I know how to apply this way into my speech I am able to be more confident when I know what I want and how I do

The more I practice, the more I succeed

5

3 I can improve my speech and adjust my speech rate, body language and eye contact Furthermore,

I can reduce the afraid of myself and could keep

up the ball even when I get trouble on the stage

Have a backup, note

cards, or cue cards in

case of forgetting

what you want to say

5 My speech will be smoother and improve my score Also, it makes me confident and more fluent when giving a speech in front of lots of people

4

6 I will know my speech better and avoid the situation of forgetting what I have prepared; on the other hand, it will be easier to improvise when I forget the content

2

8 My speech will be smoother and improve my fluency, flow, confidence, and accuracy that I can achieve the high score

3