Luận văn learners’ anxiety in speaking lessons at nguyen quan nho upper secondary school

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Chart 1: Student's anxisly in speaking lessons Table 1: Student’s attitudes toward speaking skills Table 2: Speaking anxiety associated with content of the less

speaking, anxicty It is also hoped that this rescarch will be of some help to Victnamese learners and teachers in general in having a better understanding of the nature of KLA and spouking anxiety in particular ta improvs the teaching and loarnirys of Engliste

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Chart 1: Student's anxisly in speaking lessons

Table 1: Student’s attitudes toward speaking skills

Table 2: Speaking anxiety associated with content of the lessons

Table 3: Speaking anxicty associated with communication apprehension

Table 4: Communication apprehension associated with students’ previous learning experience Table 5: Communication apprehension associated with learners’ speaking onvironment

Table 6: Commumueation apprehension associated with leamers’ personality

Yable 7; Vactors associated with learners” self perception of their inability to speak nglish Table 8: Tearners’ communication apprehcusion associaled with lcachers” factor

Table 9: Speaking anxicty associated with test

Yable 10: Leamets’ speaking anxiety associated with teacher's negative feedback

Table 11: Tcarners’ speaking anxicly associated with poots’ rugative feedback

Scope of the study

Significance of the study

a Method of the study

„ Design of the study

1.2.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and Icarning

1.2.3 Principles of teaching speaking

1.3 Speaking Anxiety 10

1.3.1 Related studies of languaae anxiety in speaking skills LÍ

1.3.2 Sources of foreign language anxiety and speaking anxiety 13 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1 Overview of current teaching and leaming speaking at Nguyen Quan Nho high

2.5.3 Sources of speaking anxiety experienced by students at Nguyen Quan Nho high

Leamets’ self-perception of their ownspeaking ability 25

b Conmmuieation apprehension associated with teachers” factors 27

2.5.3.4, Speaking amiiety associated with fear of negative feedback 20

a Speaking anxiety associated with teacher’s negative feedback 29

> Leamers” speaking anxicty associated with peer’s negative fecdback 30

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CHAPTER IL SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASSROOM PRACTICE

3.1 Solutions related to the contents of the lessons

3.2 Solutions rclatzd to learners’ communication apprehension

3.3 Solutions relatad to tes anxicly

3.4 Solutions related to learners’ fear of negative feedback

PART C: CONCLUSION

1 Summary of the findings:

2, Limitations oŸ the siudy

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Nowadays, English is considered as an international language, which is spoken by millions

of people all over the world The number of people who desire to lean English has multiplied Some learn English to get more wisdom, some wish to get well-paid jobs, some learn Rnglish for other purposes Thal is why English has boon now widely taught in almost all educational institutions, at every level

In Vietnam, English is being taught as a compulsory subject and it is one of the six subjects

in the rational cxamination that students have to pass if they want to gct General Certificate of Secondary Education (G.C.S.E) In recent years, the teaching of foreign language in Vietnam has seen a remarkable change in methodology followed by a new approach to language teaching That is Communicative Language Teaching This approach represents a fundamental shift in the teaching-learning process from structure mastery to commmnicative competence Accordingly, learners’ ability to communicate becomes its first priority, which moans thal when learning English, learners tava to grasp all the four skills: 5

another Speaking well is of great importance to students when communicating with others

aking, reading, writing, and listening because those skills are integrated with one

ina scond language, nol only in icaching and learning environments, bul also outside the classroom, The students should be able to speak in a well structured way and develop their ability to take part in conversations, discussions and negotiations and to express with subtlety their own views and consider those of others Speaking docs not only reflect the speaker's social and cultural background, but is also a part of speaker’s identity, However, among the four skills, speaking seems to be the most difficult one but paid the least attention to in most high schools Speaking has only become a compulsory skill in the curriculum since the new English textbook was officially put inte use in 2006, This results

in mmerous problems inflicting students in learning the speaking skills, one of which is Forcign Language Loaring Auxicty, Besides, having considerable levels of arvsicty in the classroom has been regarded as an experience that is more likely to occur mn foreign language lessons than in other subjects ‘his seems natural as in forcign language

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classroom the students have to use foreign language - an instrument they are not familiar with - (0 sustain communivalion, As a teacher of English, I have natiged thal my students oiten experience foreign language anxiety in speaking skills Some students experience pressure when being asked to speak in ftont of the whole class because they fear criticism Some may feel nervous since they lack of vocahulary lo express their ideas; consequently, they may tremble and stutter, etc, Such situation has inspired me to carry out a study on learners’ anxiety in speaking skills to identify the causes and give solutions to alleviate students’ anxiety in learning speaking,

2, Aims of the study

The major purpose of the research is to find out factors or causes that make students stressfidl and nervous in speaking English and suggest some solutions to alleviate Lnglish speaking anxiety in the students

3 Research questions

To fulfill the above aims, the study is carried out with an attempt to answer the following

questions:

1, What are the possible causes that make students at Xguyen Quan Nho upper

secondary school anxious and nervous in learning speaking?

2 What ars the possible solutions to reduce speaking anxiety of the students?

4, Scope of the study

FLA exits in the process of Icarning all the four skills However, only students’ speaking anxiety is focused on in this research with its causes in terms of contents of the lessons, communication apprehension, lest anxiely and fear of negative feedback and sahutions based on cach source of anxicly Duc to the focal condition constraints, this study only involves one hundred and thirty-five 10” form students at Nguyen Quan Nho High School

5, Significance of the study

This study could be of some help to teachers and students at Nguyen Quan Nho upper secondary school

i) to improve the teachers’ theoretical understanding of foreign language anxiety,

especially the causes of speaking anxiety

Gi} lo enlomee the studsnis’ awareness of causes of speaking anvsely they have in

foreign language, and from this they can control and overcome their nervousness in speaking skills Hopefully, the possible solutions suggested in this research can help Toarnar reduce the speaking anxicly and motivate there to learn and maks progress in speaking

6 Method of the study

In order to realize the above aims of the study, quantitative method was mainly used The

data collected for the study came frorn the 10" grade students Survey questionnaire was

used to gather information and evidence for the study

In addition, to make the data collected more reliable and authentic, qualitative method was

applied with two instruments: a follow up interview and an informal observation,

All the comments, remarks, recommendations and conchision provided in the study were based on the data analysis of the shucly

7, Design of the study

‘This study is divided into three parts

Parl A — Introduction prosenis the rationale, the aims, thơ rescarch questions, scops, significance, methods as well as the design of the study,

Part B — Dewelopment contains three chapters Chapter ong reviews the literature in terms

of speaking, foreign language anxiety in general and speuking anxicly in particular Chapter two presents the study Chapter three mentions some suggested solutions to reduce speaking anxiety

Part C Conclusion presents a summary of the study and concluding comments derived

from the findings of the study It also discusses the limitation of the study and suggestion

for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

The main aim of this chapter is to review the Tileralure on

ond Tanguage anxicly in

general and speaking anxiety in particular The chapter starts with a literature review on

anxiety This is followed by an overview of speaking The end of the chapter is a

discussion of speaking anxiety

1.1 Overview of anxiety

1.1.1 Definition and types of anxicty

In the nineteenth century, Darwin (1872) thought of anxicly as an cmotional reaction that

is aroused when an organism feels physically under threat At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hreud (1920) thought anxiety was akin to “fear” or fight” In later decades: “Anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by psychologists as a state of approhension, a vague fear that is only indircetly associated with an object” (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971 cited in Scovel, 1991: 18) In another definition, Scovel (1978: 134) suggesls thal anxiely is associaled with Gelings of uneasiness, fiustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry Horwitz, et al (1986), define anxiety as

“the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonornic nervous systern

According to MacIntyre and Gadner (1991), anxiety in general can be experienced at three perspectives: trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation specific amidety ‘The first

over time within a given situation

1.1.2, Foreign language unxiely

prumarily emotional, being” (Rogers, cited in Brown, 2007:

construct of anxiety has been recognived as one of the most important predictors of foreign

language performance

Foreign language anxicty is a universal phenomenon thal has 2 significant factor udversoly affecting, the language leaming process Gardnar & Macintyre (1993, cited in Amold 1999:59) refer to language anxiety as “fear or apprehension occuring when a learner is expacted to perform in the

vonid ar forgign kingnage.”

Scholars havs studied anxiety and its effect on foreign language learning for many years, However, “for all the work conducted in this area, many fundamental questions remain unanswered” (Speilmann & Radnofky, 2001) “Teachers have long becn aware of the fact that many of their students experience discomfort in the course of language leaming [yet] researchers have been unable to establish a clear piclure of how anxiely affects language learning and performance (Horwitz and Young, 1991; xii) Alpert and Haber (1960) determined that anxiety could have a beneficial or facilitative effect on student

performance (as cited im Pikhafaifi, 2005: 208) In 1977, Kleinmmann’s (cited in Aida,

1994) study of Spanish-speaking and Arabic-speaking ESL students found that facilitating anxiety was correlated with students’ oral production of linguistically difficult (thus challenging) English structures (¢.g., infinitive complements and passive sentences) However, there was no evidsnee ml debiliating anxicly negatively influenced oral performance Spielman and Radnofiky (2001) coneluded that anxiety has a detrimental effect on language acquisition Horwitz (2001) reiterated that the issue of understanding

the relationship between anxicty and achievement is unresolved

A more delailed description of language anxiety was provided by Horwitz, el al (1986) They tegerdsil conmmuricalion apprchension, lost anxicty, and fear of nogulive cvaluation

as the conceptual building blocks for the description of foreign language anxiety, Communication apprehension is considered as fear or anxiety related to communicating

with people hey suggested that the inability to express one’s thoughts and ideas in the forcign language or the inability lo comprehend another 5 of

to show perfect test performance Students who are anxious in foreign language class sufisr a lot owing to the frequent assessment inherent in the learning, Hear of negative

evaluation is defined as the apprehension shoul the evaluation from others, (he aveidance

of being involved in evaluative situation, and the expectation that one is negatively evaluated by others (Watsoné Friend, as cited in Horwitz, et al., 1991) Fear of negative

evaluation is not Tinted to lest-laking situations, which separates it from the concept of

test anxiety

Although communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation are useful for deseribing forcign language anxicty, Horwitz, ct al, (1986) suggested that foreign language anxiety was not merely the sum of these fears ‘They consider foreign language anxiely as a distinct complex of self- perceptions, heliefs, feeling and behavior comected with, and arising from language Ieaming situations Foreign language anxiety is

a form of situation specific anxiety: it is stable over time but limited to the particular siluations of language learning Except the foreign language anxiety defined by Torwily,

al, (1986), the anxiety related to specific language skills, such as writing, reading, listening and speaking are all situation specific anxieties, The situation-specitic anxiety is different from the state anxiety, because it is the tendency to become anxious, rather than the real- time anxious feeling TLis different from the trait anxisly, for iL is limited to a specific type

of situation, rather than across various type of situations, MacIntyre and Gardner (19912)

suggested that situation-specific anxiety can be seen as trait anxiety in a given context

In other words, FLA is the “fear” or “apprehension” occurring when a student is required

lo perform in the second or foreign language Anxiety refers to an emotional sials which

can have both positive and negative influences, and which fosters and facilitates or disturbs:

and impedes learning (MacIntyre, 1995) Anxiety can harm leamets’ performance in many ways such as not participating in the activities or not using the language in public In

Bygate (1997) stated that speaking was a skill which deserved attention every bit as nmich

as literacy skill It is often thought of as a “popular” form of expression that uses the unprestigious “colloquial” register Speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill Perhaps this is because we can almost speak, and so lake the skit to much for granted Tn his own view, Mackey (1965) defines “Oral expressions involves not only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning.” (cited in Bygale, 1997: 5) According to him, for the students who want to be good at speaking, he’ she has to choose the right forms, put them in correct order, sound it like native speaker and even produce the right meanings ‘Therefore, speaking skills generally have to be leant and practiced carclully hetore giving » presentation,

1.2.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning

Speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills since it helps to identify who knows or does nol know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that wher poopls know or learn a language, they mean being able Lo spoak the haneumge

In language teaching and learning, speaking is a medium through which much language is learnt, and which is particularly useful for learning ‘The ability to conmmmicate in a second

language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learners in school and

Tater in every phase of fife (Kayi, 2006)

More than this, speaking is regarded as the first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language Ur, P (1996) shows Ihal people who knows a language are referred to as

“speaker” of that language as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing

To many language toarncts “ mastcring the ort of speaking is the single most, important aspect of learning a second language or foreign Janguage, and success is measured in terms

of ability to carry out a conversation in the language” (Nunan, 1991: 39) It can be inferred

from Nurem’s view point thal speaking is a very irnporlanl skif among [he four basic ones Therefore, having dealt with the umportance of oral skills in language teaching and learning

is essential that language teachers should pay more attention to teaching speaking skills In order to carry out many of the most basic transactions, it is necessary for learners to speak

with confidence

1.2.3, Principles af teaching speaking

In order to have a successful speaking lessons, teachers and learners should pay attention

to ils principles suggested in EST methodology 1 (Te Thu Tuang, #1 al., 2008)

First of all, teaching speaking skills 1s closed to “receptive skill work”, Students learn this through texts which offer them models to follow ‘They can imitate the way native speakers

usc the lamguages and their intonation Besides, when people wml te keep their conversation, they have to listen to others, receive what partners say to produce new

sentences, so it is also reception

Secondly, teachers ought to “give students practice with both fluency and accuracy”, As being mentioned by Brown & Nation (1997), stndents must learn both knowledge and the way nalive speakers usc the language to speak well

On the other hand, it is recommended to “provide opportunities for students to talk by using pair work and group work, and limit teacher talk” Pair work and group work are

To conclude, these principles are not all, but they are more important than others, so they are reviewed to help teachers and learners have good speaking classes

1.3 Speaking anxiety

The anxiely associated with second language speaking performance is called speaking anxiety Speaking anxiety has been supposed to be the result of speaking and has also been found to influence speaking

MacIntyre (1999: 33) claimed speaking seems to be “the single most important source of language anxaety”, Students have been found to feel most amaous when they respond to the teacher or are singled out to speak in class (Lin, 2007) ‘Ihe predominance of the number of items related lo spoaking on instruments designed lo measure general forcign language anxety also reflects the widely held view of speaking being the most anxiety- provoking aspect of foreign language learning for many students

1.3.1 Related studies of language anxiety in speaking skills

in class There were several factors leading to anxiety such as lack of vocabulary, low English proficicncy and memory disassociation, The rescarcher underlined the importance

of the awareness of the teachers with regard to the existence of anxiety among EFL learners and showed emupatlry to them in class

‘Tsiplakides and Keramida (2009) examined the characteristics of anxious students in order

to implement, classroom inlerventions lo reduce forcign language speaking anxiely and provide teachers with strategies to cope with amaety stemming fiom students’ fear of negative evaluation ftom their peers and perception of low ability, Fifteen students participated in the study and the researchers used thres techniques of qualitative data collection scmi-structurad interviews, group discussion and dirccl observation The data analysis showed that six of those students were experiencing English language speaking anxiety as a result of fear of negative evaluation from their peers and perception of low ability in relation to thei peers Having cstablished the sources for English language speaking anxiety, the researchers implemented the following classroom interventions to overcome il: project work, establishing community and a supportive classraom atmosphere

stressful situation for some students and therefore, the teachers should help their students

lo overcome forcign language anxicly

1.3.2, Sources of foreign language anxiety and speaking anxiety

It has been estimated that approximately one third of students learning a foreign language

experience some types of foreign language anxiety (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986)

Research has shown thal there

ø ø number of ways that learning a forcign language can

cause anxiety for the language leamers, The causes can be broken down into three main

sources: learners’ characteristics, teacher characteristics and classroom procedures

Learner characteristics that can cause foreign language anxiety include low self-esteem, competitiveness, selfperceived low level of ability communication apprehension, lack of group membership with peers, and beliefs about language learning

Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) stated that anxious students often cite speaking in the

foreign language to be their mosl anxiely-producing experience This is yrart dne Lo the fact that it is hard to be one’s self in the target language (i.e feelings of uncertainty and threats

to the ego due to the unknown element of the second language; as cited in Guiora et al, 1972), which can thus trigger anxiely The foreign language learners are put in the position

of conmmmeating something that is meaningful to hinvher without having sufficient command of the Ianguage to do so, Self-aware language learners are conttonted with the probability that people will perceive them differently from the way they perceive themselves, Thus loarnrs can experience anxicly as a tesull of fear of expeticnce of

“Josing oneself” in the target culture

Student beliefs about language learning can also be associated with anxicty (Horwitz, horwitz and Cope, 1986; Horwitz, 1988, Price, 1991; Young, 1991) Students can have unrealistic expectations as to how a parson should perform in a fareign language classroom, when thase expectations arc not met il can Lead Lo negative [eclings about one’s intelligence and abilities Young (1994) listed the following role-related belies which have been shown to evoke feelings of anxiety, i is necessary for the teacher to be intimidating at

13

times, the instructor is supposed to comect every single mistake made by the students,

should do most of the talking; and the instructor’s role is that ofa drill sergeant

of kagpinys everything in one’s bead; and the belief that learning a, language is casier al art earlier age, These are all faulty beliefs that may cause the students to have unrealistic expectations about the language learning process, and thus cause some anxiety

As far as ieacher factors ae concemed, a judgmental teachmne attitude (Samimy, 1994) and a harsh manner of teaching (Aida, 1994) are linked to student fear in the classroom Palacios (1998) found the following characteristics of the teacher to be associated with anxiety absence of teacher support, unsympathetic personalities, lack of time for personal attention, favoritism, a sense that the class does not provide students with the tools necessary to match up with the leacher’s expeclations, and the sense of being judged by the teacher or wanting to impress the teacher Young (1299) noted that teaching too much grammar or avoiding grammar altogether as well as using speaking activities that put the learner “on the spot” in frenl of peers without allowing prior preparalion are also sources

of anxiety for many students, Ando (1999) found that having a native speaker for a teacher can cause anxiety, as the teacher may lack the sensitivity of the learning process or the teacher may be hard to understand in Linglish

‘A third source of foreign language anxiety is classroom procedures, Young (1990) compiled a list of classroom activities which are perceived by students as producing anxiety (1) spontancous role play in front of the class, (2) spcaking in front of the class, (3) oral presentations or skits in front of the class; (4) presenting a prepared dialogue in front of the class; amd (9) writing work on the beard

Error correction also tumed out to play an important role: being negatively evaluated by either the teacher or peers is offen associated with anxiety Palacios (1998) found the

following classroom characteristics to be anxiety-producing: demands of oral production, foclings of boing pul on the spot, the pace of the class, and the clement of boing evaluated

Ge, fear of negative evaluation)

Oxford (1999) emphasized learning and teaching styles as a potential source of language anxiety If the instructor’s teaching style and a student’s learning style are not compatible,

“style wars” can trigger or heigitten anxiety levels

In addition, farguage testing may lead to foreign language anxiety (Young, 1991; Daly,1991) Kor example, difficult tests, tests that do not match the teaching in class, and unclear or unfamiliar test instructions can all produce lasrnor anxicly

In short, there are various causes of anxiety Inths context of speaking English as a second language, Young (1.991) listed six potential causes of language anxiety which include both personal and interpersonal factors, learners” belicfs about language Icaming, instructors’ beliefs about language teaching, instructor-learner interactions, classroom procedures and language tests Tlowever, lo date, findings by Tlorwitz, el al (1986) lave been the mos! influential, They identified three causes of language anxiety, that is, communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation Based on these three comporenis they also designed a Foreign Language Classroum Ansiely Scale comprising thirty-three items, This scale was later used widely by researchers to measure forzign language leamers’ anxiety and examme the effect of anxiety on learning in different

contexts

Most studies on foreign language anxiety are quantitative in nature From a qualitative perspective, Price (1991) interviewed highly-anxious students to gain insight into the

subjective cxpericnee of language anxicty In general, the interviews were consistent with

the foreign language anxiety construct identified by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986)

The participanls spoke about their Iesi anxiely, communication apprehsusion, and fear of nogalive evaluation, All of thom identified speaking target language 10 bo the greatest source of anxiety, Just like Young (1990), the interviews conducted by Price emphasized the importance of low self-esteem Meny of her subjects compared themselves to other

language leamers and believed their language skills to be weaker In addition, the

participants’ respouscs suggested Uta, perfectionis

come into play (cited in Gregersen and Horwitz, 2002), According to Price (1991), anxious

$s another personality trait tha, can

learners often engage in self-comparison with classmates and pssrs — a practice which can lead to anxiety

‘To sum up, the chapter reviews the literature on many issues related to anxiety and spouking anxiety These include @ definition of forsign language anxiety and its typos, definition and the role of speaking in language teaching and learning, principles of teaching the skills, factors causing speaking anxiety and previous studies related to language anxicly in spcaking skills This knowledge, therefore, serves as a basis for Farther work in the latter chapters

CHAPTER I: THE STUDY

‘This chapter presents the study It includes information about the overview of current teaching and teaming speaking at Nguyen Quan Nho high school, the data collection instrument, the procedure, the data analysis

2.1 Overview of current teaching and learning speaking at Nguyen Quan Nho high school

The study was conducted al Nguyen Quan Nho high school, Thanh Hoa province, One hundred and thirty tive students from three classes LOAL, 10A4 and 10A7 participated in this study ‘They have been leaming English since they were in 6” grade (ie, they have had four years of English learning at junior sccondary school.) However, like most other students in Vietnam they rarely have chance to communicate with English speaking people

in both classroom and outside classroom Consequently, their ability to speaking Linglish can not be improved Besides English in general and speaking in particular has not been paid much attention to duc to the fact that students do not have to take English tests in the Graduation Exam fiom junior secondary school and in Entrance Exam into High School

‘The students are studying English in large classes of about forty to forty five students each,

‘They are learning the newly and revised textbook “IIENG ANH 10” by Hoang Van Van,

at al (2006) This texthook is theme-based including 16 unils, equivalent lo 16 topics divided into 6 themes namely: Personal information, Education, Community, Health, Recreation, The World Around Us Within the tame work of each unit, the language input

is respectively introduced with five sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and

Language Focus Fach section is designed Lo be taught in forty-five minutes According ta the syllabus, students have three English classes a week, Accordingly, time located for speaking skills is one period every two wesks In addition to the time constraint for speaking, students do not have much chance for furthcr practice Consequently, students at Nguyen Quan Nho high school face a great variety of problems with speaking skills, one of

‘The instruments used in this study were: (1) a questionnaire, (2) informal interview with

the students

The questionnaire consists of three parts, Firstly, students were asked to give their personal information about gender, their years of tearning Fnglish Secondly, the students responded about their attitudes toward speaking skills Thirdly, the subjects were asked to identify their problems that increase their anxiety in speaking lessons by responding to statements

on the basis af the ÍÄvo-poinL scala (never, ssldom, sometimes, oflen, and always) The questionnaire was designed after a review of the literature about factors viewed as causing anxiety that influence speaking skills ‘The data obtained form the questionnaire was

tabutaled, prosonted, and froqucncies and porconlages were catcutated

‘The informal interview with the students were conducted ‘The major concern was their opinion of why each problem of speaking skills, which was shown in the third part of the questionnaire, made them nervous and stressful in speaking classes, The data obtained from the informal interviews was transcribed and analyzed so that the researcher of this study could gain a deep understanding of the problems, from those giving possible solutions to help students alleviate their amuety In the analysis, a numerical system was applied to identify each data entry heir answers were translated into English

dala, pblained from the questiormwire were analyzed quaniilatively and

students at Nguyen Quan Nho high school

2.5 Data analysis and findings

2.5.1 Student’ s attitudes toward speaking skills

This section doals with students? ideas of speaking skills in torms of the imparlance of the

skills and the level of likeness that learners reported

E How & speaking skills importunt to you?

Veyimpwlal Rather bnportant Litile important ‘Not inpertant al all Students" No 38 +“ 5 T8

Siudenb'% 20.7% 33.0 39.396 TAM

2 Huw de yon enjoy speaking English?

Very much ‘Nol much lle ‘Not at all Students? No 26 35 a 1

Smidents' 9% T83 10796 30.4% 9.6%

Table 2: Student's attitudes toward speaking sialls

‘As can be seen fom the table above, 53 out of 135 respondents (39.3%) considered

speaking skills little important while 32.6% stated it was rather important and 20.7% of the

correspondents mentioned speaking was a very important skill 7.4% of the students did not highly evaluate the importance of the speaking, skills when they reported that the skills were not important at all ‘his result shows that generally the students were aware of the imporlance of speaking in learning a forcign language

The second question was asked on students’ interest in speaking English The great majority of the respondents (90.4%) reported that they enjoyed speaking English, however only 19.3% expressed Iheir great love for iL

a `

In short, the students realized the importance of learning speaking skills in EFL acquisition process Most of them were interested in speaking skills In other words, they all had good attitudes to speaking skills,

Chart 1: Student's anxiety in speaking lessons

Chart 1 reveals that the great majority (77%) of the students in the study responded that they felt more tense and nervous in English speaking class than in other classes 16% of the respondents admitted that they always felt tense and nervous in speaking classes 42% of them often said they often and 19% said sometimes Only 23 % were in disagreement with this idea The students’ level of anxiety reported on the survey was also supported by their answers in the interview In a word, the tendency of speaking anxiety of students at

Nguyen Quan Nho high school was obvious

2.5.3 Sources of speaking anxiety experienced by students at Nguyen Quan Nho high school

Factors causing students’ speaking anxiety are catagorized into different sources including

the contents of the 1

ans, communication apprehension, test anxicly and fear of negative

feedback which will be discussed in details below

2.5.3.1 Speaking anviely associate with the contents of the lessons

‘The next items attempt to find out the learners’ speaking anxiety associated with content of

? Tiel anxious when the speaking topic | 5296 178% 2159 207% | 34896

in the text hook is difficult

3 Tfeel nervous when Tlack hackground | 3% 111% — T839 37898 | 289%

knowledge and vocabulary related to

the Lopies

Table 2: Speaking auciety associated with content of the lassons

‘As shown above, difficult topics caused the greatest level of anxiety to students, More specifically, while 77% of the participants responded that they sometimes, often and always fell anxious when the speaking topie in the text book is difficull, only 23% of them reported that this problem never or seldom made them nervous in speaking classes

The cause of their nsrvousness and tension in speaking classes was that they did not have cnough background knowledge and vocabulary related to the speaking topics As can be seen from table 2, the great majority of the students (86%) felt nervous due to their limited

velated to it.”

“I got tired overwhelming stressed.”

“Tn this case, the speaking didn't attract my interest I couldn't concentrate on the

fesson.”

The subjects believed thal their inability in conmunicating Finglish making them anxious and nervous stemmed fiom their lack of vocabulary knowledge If their vocabulary size were increased, they might express themselves better For example, some explanations

were as follows

“I can not speak beceuse I can not find the appropriate wards to express my idea

inunediately.*

“If Tlnew enough vocabulary to express my:

“I think can be successfid in speaking classes if Imemo

T contd speak more in the class.”

lots of words”

From the above results, it is obvious that students need to enrich their vocabulary for

cffective English sposking classes,

2.5.3.2 Speaking anxiety associated with communication apprehension

Ttem ‘Never = Seldom =~ Sometimes Often ‘Always

4 L get anxious’ Hustralcd when [ am | 13.3% 32.6% 18.3% 21.5% | 14.1%

asked to discuss with classmates

5 Ttremble and feel ny heart pounding | 15.0% 17% — 9086 207% | 17%

when T am going to he called an lo answer questions in English,

Table 3: Speaking anxiety associated with connnunication apprehension

As il is indicated clearly in table 3, Ihe fourth item was lo know whether dis

sing with their classmates could make students nervous and anxious More than half of the participants (54.1%) responded that they (sometimes, often, always) felt anxious when they

were asked to discuss with thzir classmates,

On being called on to answer questions in Linglish, the majority of the respondents (67.3%)

reported (hat they (sometimes, oflen and always) trembled and felt their hearts pounding Through the survey questionnaire the respondents revealed that they felt anxious in speaking class hecause of many reasons The table below illustrates the factors associated with sludents? communication apprehension

a) Communication apprehension associated with learner's factors

There are many factors causing students’ communication apprehension such as their previous learning experience, the speaking environment; the self-perception of their own spouking ability, their personalily,

* Previous learning experience

Table 4: Connmumication apprehension associated with students’ previous learning experience

Table 4 reveals that, the great majority of the respondents (81,64) were not accustomed to speaking, English, It is casy to understand because as reported in the interviews, their English study at lower secondary school was strongly exam-oriented, most of the students used lo work hard al written English while neglecting speaking and listening practices Therefore, it is understandable why they became so nervous when they had to speak English at high school

© Learners’ learning environment