Factors influencing first year non english major studdents’ anxiety in speaking classes at academy of policy and development some possible techniques for overcoming the problem

Aims of the study The aim of the study is to find out the main causes that make first - year students at Academy of Policy and Development stressful and anxious in speaking English clas

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

AT ACADEMY OF POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT- SOME

POSSIBLE TECHNIQUES TO OVERCOME THE

PROBLEMS (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG

GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT Ở HỌC VIỆN CHÍNH SÁCH VÀ PHÁT

TRIỂN: MỘT SỐ THỦ THUẬT KHẮC PHỤC)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Methodology Code: 6014.0111

Hanoi, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

AT ACADEMY OF POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT- SOME

POSSIBLE TECHNIQUES TO OVERCOME THE

PROBLEMS (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG

GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT Ở HỌC VIỆN CHÍNH SÁCH VÀ PHÁT

TRIỂN: MỘT SỐ THỦ THUẬT KHẮC PHỤC)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Methodology Code: 6014.0111

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2013

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this thesis is entirely my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study

Hanoi, September 2013

Signature

Hồ Thị Ánh

Secondly, I am also grateful to all the lecturers of the Post-Graduate Department of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University Hanoi for their valuable teaching and assistance during my course

Thirdly, I would also like to acknowledge my gratefulness to the participants of this study: the first – year students at Academy of Policy and Development Without their willingness to complete the questionnaires and participate in the interviews, this study could not have been conducted

Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my dear family, especially my older sister for their love, encouragement, immeasurable support and concrete help for me

to complete this research

ABSTRACT

Feeling anxiety, apprehension are common phenomena experienced by foreign language learners, especially in learning to speak a foreign language These negative feelings are blamed to exert detrimental effect on communication in the target language This current research, therefore, was conducted with the aim to investigate main factors of speaking anxiety phenomenon in the first year students

at Academy of Policy and Development (APD) The study involved 50 students from 5 first-year classes at APD Through the use of quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) methods as research instruments and six sources of language anxiety as theoretical guideline for data collection and analysis, major findings were drawn First, the speaking anxiety tendency of the students surveyed was obvious Second, some factors believed to contribute to students‟ anxiety were also identified, among which the personal and interpersonal anxieties seemed to be most highly regarded by the students Several pedagogical strategies

of these findings were offered to assist instructors in helping learners acknowledge, cope with, and reduce anxiety, as well as to encourage them to make the learning

context less stressful to their students

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 1

1 RATIONALE 1

2 A IMS OF THE STUDY 2

3 R ESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

4 S COPE OF THE STUDY 2

5 M ETHODS OF THE STUDY 2

6 D ESIGN OF THE STUDY 3

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 T HEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF ANXIETY 4

1.1 Definition of anxiety 4

1.2 Types of anxiety 4

1.3 Foreign language anxiety 5

1.4 Effect of anxiety on Foreign Language Learning 6

1.5 Sources of foreign language anxiety 7

1.6 Anxiety management strategies: 11

2 S PEAKING 13

2.1 Definition of speaking 13

2.2 Roles of speaking in language teaching and learning 14

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 15

1 S ETTING 15

2 P ARTICIPANTS 15

3 D ATA COLLECTION 16

3.1 Instruments 16

3.2 Data collection procedure 17

4 D ATA ANALYSIS : 18

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 19

1 S OURCES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY 19

1.1 Personal and interpersonal anxiety 19

1.2 Learner beliefs about language learning 21

1.3 Instructor beliefs about language teaching 23

1.4 Instructor-learner interactions 26

1.5 Classroom procedures 29

1.6 Language testing 31

CHAPTER IV: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 33

1.S UMMARY OF THE STUDY 2 SOLUTIONS 2.1 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO PERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL ANXIETY 34

2.2 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO LEARNER BELIEFS ABOUT LANGUAGE LEARNING 35

2.3 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO INSTRUCTOR BELIEFS ABOUT LANGUAGE TEACHING 36

2.4 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO INSTRUCTOR - LEARNER INTERACTIONS 36

2.5 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO CLASSROOM PROCEDURES 38

2.6 S OLUTIONS RELATED TO LANGUAGE TESTING 38

3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 39

4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES 39

REFERENCES 40 APPENDIX 1 .I

APPENDIX 2 IV

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Learning a second language seems to be exciting for many people while others struggle and even fail to achieve their desired level of language proficiency It is believed that second language acquisition (SLA) is determined and affected by many different factors Since the ground- breaking research of the Canadian psychologists R.C Gardner and Wallace Lambert about attitudes and motivation in second language learning in the 1970s, SLA researchers have also considered affective or emotional variables and how these factors may facilitate or hinder language acquisition (Horwitz, Tallon, & Luo, 2010, p 95) Among various affective variables like attitude, anxiety, interest, motivation, inhibition, and self-esteem, “anxiety is quite possibly the affective factor that most pervasively obstructs the learning process” (Arnold & Brown, 1999, cited in Dornyei, 2005, p 198) As a result, Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) has been gradually becoming the research focus and interest of many language professionals as well as educators They have provided detailed understanding of FLA from different aspects: theoretical models and frameworks of FLA (e.g., Tobias, 1977; Horwitz et al., 1991; MacIntyre & Garner, 1994a, 1994b); sources and characteristics of FLA (e.g., Horwitz,1988; Koch & Terrell,1991; Young 1991); FLA effects on FL proficiency and performance ( e.g., Kleinman, 1977; Madsen, 1982; Young, 1986); and anxiety management strategies (e.g., Long & Porter, 1985; Price, 1991; Young, 1991) Although a large number of studies in FLA have been carried out to investigate the nature of FLA, to the best of the author‟s knowledge, little has been done on anxiety experienced by Vietnamese learners in their English learning process

In Vietnam, English has been now widely taught in almost all educational

institutions, at every level Thus, learning English in Vietnam has gained a remarkable achievement However, in comparison with other developed countries, learning speaking skill in Vietnam is not really efficient As a teacher of English at

Academy of Policy and Development (APD), from her own observations and experience, the present researcher has noticed that the feeling of anxiety, apprehension and nervousness are common phenomena experienced by her first -year students Notably, the level of anxiety has been observed to be higher in speaking classes compared with other ones, therefore, the outcome of oral English speaking is not satisfactory These negative emotional factors seem to maintain a barrier that prevents students from actively participating in speaking activities Such situation has aroused her interest and inspired the author to conduct a research on

the topic: “Factors influencing first-year non-English major students’ anxiety in

speaking classes at Academy of Policy and Development- Some possible techniques

to overcome the problem”

2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is to find out the main causes that make first - year students at Academy of Policy and Development stressful and anxious in speaking English classrooms and then suggest some possible techniques for dealing with students‟ anxiety in speaking classes

3 Research questions

The study is carried out with an attempt to answer the following question:

What are the main factors influencing first year non - English major students’ anxiety in speaking classes at APD? What is the most common factor?

4 Scope of the study

FLA exists in the process of learning all the four skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing (Aida, 1994; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Young, 1986; Cheng, Horwitz & Schallert, 1999; Cheng, 2002; Saito et al., 1999; Vogely, 1998) However, this study only focuses on anxiety of speaking skill with its causes as speaking is the best in expressing the students‟ participation as well as their feelings For its strong evidence- bearing capacity, speaking is chosen as a major indicator to measure participation Moreover, due to the time constraints, this study only involves a small number of APD students in their first academic year

5 Methods of the study

The data serving the research analysis are collected by using both quantitative and qualitative methods A survey questionnaire for informants of 50 first- year non majors of English at Academy of Policy and Development was used to gather information and evidence for the study In addition, to gain more in-depth information of the issue, semi- structured interviews with the informants were also applied

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts:

Introduction presents the rationale, the aims, the research question, the scope, the

method and the design of the study

+ Chapter I: Literature Review provides the basic theoretical background from

literature in terms of speaking, foreign language anxiety in general and speaking anxiety in particular Especially, the effect and possible causes of anxiety, which are the main issues of the study, are discussed thoroughly in this chapter

+ Chapter II: Methodology deals with the overall picture of how the research was

carried out

+ Chapter III: Data Analysis and Findings interprets the answer of research

question: What are the main factors influencing first year non - English major students‟ anxiety in speaking classes at APD? What is the most common factor? The findings of potential sources of speaking anxiety are reported and discussed in this chapter

+ Chapter IV: Dicussion and Conclusion summarizes the main contents and

findings of the study as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for

further study and suggests possible techniques for both teachers and students with

an aim to reduce and cope with anxiety in speaking classes

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background of anxiety

1.1 Definition of anxiety

Anxiety, one of the most prominent and pervasive emotions has been a focus

of research in foreign language learning since early 1970s In the twentieth century, May (1977) thought of anxiety as the apprehension cued off by a threat to some value that the individual holds essential to his existence as a personality (p 205) According to Horwitz et al (1986), anxiety is “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry consisted of an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” “Anxiety is a psychological construct, commonly described by psychologists as a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object” (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971 cited in Scovel, 1991: 18) Anxiety refers to an emotional state that can have both positive and negative influences, and which fosters and facilitates or disturbs and impedes learning (MacIntyre, 1995)

To sum up, we find that anxiety is a complex psychological construct, difficult to precisely define as it arises from many sources In general, it can have physical, emotional, and behavioral manifestations and these manifestations can differ with each individual

1.2 Types of anxiety

MacIntyre and Gardner (1991b) identified three perspectives to the study of anxiety, which are: trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety Trait anxiety, a motive or acquired behavioral disposition that predisposes an individual

to perceive a wide range of objectively non-dangerous circumstances as threatening, and to respond to these circumstances with anxiety state reactions disproportionate

in intensity to the magnitude of the objective danger, is relatively permanent and steady personality feature (Spielberger, 1966) State anxiety is apprehension experienced at particular moment in time, for example, prior to taking exams This

anxiety can be provoked in the confrontation of the perceived threat (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991b) However, it is temporary and altered in time In order to attribute the experience to a particular source, researchers adopt situation- specific perspective to the study of anxiety This perspective examines anxiety reactions in a

“well-defined situation” such as public speaking, during tests, when solving mathematics problems, or in a foreign language class (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991b, p 90) Specific situations can offer more understanding to particular anxiety

in diverse situations

1.3 Foreign language anxiety

Anxiety has been found to interfere with many types of learning but when it

is associated with leaning a second or foreign language it is termed as

„second/foreign language anxiety‟ It is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon (Young, 1991: cited in Onwuegbuzie et al., 1999: 217) According to Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), foreign language anxiety belongs to situation-specific anxiety, which refers to the apprehension experienced when a situation requires the use of a second language with which the individual is not fully proficient (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993)

Horwitz et al (1986, p 128) defines foreign language anxiety as “ a distinct complex of self-perceptions, feelings, and behaviors related to classroom learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” and Gardner and MacIntyre (1993, cited in Arnold 1999:59) portraits language anxiety as “fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language.”

Researchers have been unable to draw a clear picture of how anxiety affects language learning and performance (Horwitz and Young, 1991: xiii) Some researchers reported a negative relationship between language anxiety and achievement However, anxiety has occasionally been found to facilitate language learning Therefore, it is important that FL researchers and teachers understand

better the nature of FLA in order to find out effective teaching methods to reduce the negative effects of anxiety

1.4 Effect of anxiety on Foreign Language Learning

Most language FL researchers have focused on investigating the relationship between anxiety and language learning Although the results conflict, language anxiety displays the negative effects in most cases (Chan and Wu, 2004, p 291) According to MacIntyre and Gardener (1991b), anxiety has been found to negatively affect performance in the second language In this sense, anxiety, in variety of studies, has displayed significantly negative correlations with students' performances in terms of final course grades (Aida, 1994; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; Liao, 1999), standardized tests (Gardner, et al., 1987), and the grades

in mid-term exams (Liao, 1999) In addition, anxiety motivates the learner to withdraw from the language task and leads him to adopt avoidance behaviours (Alpert & Haber, 1960; Scovel, 1978) Horwitz et al (1986) claims that highly anxious students avoid conveying complex messages in the foreign language, or take more time to learn vocabulary items (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989) Moreover, MacIntyre and Gardner (1991b) found out that if the student‟s experience and proficiency increase, anxiety declines in a fairly consistent manner In contrast, if their proficiency and experiences with the foreign language are not positive, foreign language anxiety develops Poor foreign language performance reinforces foreign language anxiety As a result, these two variables affect each other constantly Furthermore, almost all studies nowadays have shown that in the three stages of language acquisition, that is, input, processing and output negatively correlated with anxiety (Horwitz et al., 1986; Tobias, 1986; Price 1991; MacIntyre & Gardner 1991a; Ellis, 1994) Besides, there have been some studies conducted to point out the negative relationship between anxiety and four aspects of language learning, especially, speaking and listening MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) further claims

that speaking is by far the main agent of anxiety- arousal, and that students with high anxiety perform worse than those with low anxiety

However, although a certain level of anxiety may be detrimental, some researchers found positive correlations between foreign language anxiety and language achievement, e.g anxiety “motivates the learner to „fight‟ the new learning task; it gears the learner emotionally for approach behavior” (Scovel, 1991, cited in Tanveer, 2007, p 11) or it is believed to enhance the learning process (Alpert & Haber, 1960; Kleinman, 1977) Additionally, in Bailey‟s (1983) study of competitiveness and anxiety, it was found that anxiety was one of the keys to success, and closely related to competitiveness It means that in active learning atmosphere, students‟ anxiety will make them feel passive, reticence when taking part in speaking activities in groups, pairs or responding the teachers Consequently, their achievements are not good, so they have to deal with the problem by many ways in order to overcome it

On the whole, the researchers agree that the relationship between anxiety and language learning is probably not a simple linear one Therefore, it is important that

FL researchers and teachers understand better the nature of FLA in order to find out effective teaching methods to reduce the negative effects of anxiety

1.5 Sources of foreign language anxiety

According to Horwitz, Howtitz and Cope (1986), while learning a foreign language, approximately one-third learners experience some types of foreign language anxiety Researchers had indicated that, there are a number of factors that can cause anxiety for language learners Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) claim that students were anxious in ESL/ EFL classroom due to communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation Bailey (1983) concluded from his studies and interviews that competitiveness, tests and learners‟ perceived relationship with their teachers are all possible causes of anxiety Another conclusion was supported by Price (1991) that language anxiety originated from 4 aspects: difficulty level of foreign language classes, personal perception of language

aptitude, certain personality variables and stressful classroom experiences Through

a review of the literature on language anxiety, Young (1991) also offers an extensive list of six potential sources of language anxiety He claims that language anxiety can be broken down into six main sources: personal and interpersonal anxiety, learner beliefs about language learning, instructor beliefs about language teaching, instructor-learner interactions, classroom procedures, and language testing The author will in turn discuss the six potential sources of language anxiety below

1.5.1 Personal and interpersonal anxieties

According to Young (1991), personal and interpersonal anxieties are the most commonly cited potential sources of language anxiety He also supposed that personal anxiety is in relation to learners‟ personality traits ( e.g., shyness, reservedness) or individual differences ( e.g., self- esteem, self- perception), meanwhile, interpersonal anxiety is concerned with situation- specific anxiety ( e.g., competitiveness, fear of negative evaluation, communication apprehension)

Several researchers argued that low self-esteem and competitiveness are the two significant sources caused learners‟ anxiety Price (1991) and Hembree (1988) implied that learners who start out with a self- perceived low ability level in

a foreign or second language are more likely to feel language anxiety Students with low self- esteem tend to worry about what their peers or friends think, in fear

of their negative responses or evaluation as they express their self image through a

FL (Bailey, 1983; Price, 1991; Young, 1991) As regards to competitiveness, Price (1991) stated that many of her subjects see themselves as “less proficient than other objects of comparison” and that they "weren't doing a good job and that everyone else looked down on them.” Likewise, Bailey (1983) analyzed the diaries of 11 learners and found that competitiveness can lead to anxiety when language learners compare themselves to others or to an idealized self-image

In addition, Gergerson and Horwitz (2002) have discovered the link between anxiety and perfectionism and found some common characteristics between anxious

language learners and perfectionists (e.g., higher standards for their English performance, more worry over the opinions of others, and a higher level of concern over their errors) These things seem to make language learning unpleasant and less successful for the perfectionist students than for others

1.5.2 Learner beliefs about language learning

Unrealistic and erroneous learner beliefs about language learning are also a major factor contributing greatly to creating language anxiety in students (Young,

1991, p.428) In his study, Horwitz (1988) found that over one- third of the students believed that foreign language learning primarily involved translating from English and memorizing vocabulary words and grammatical rules Additionally, many students also thought that success of L2 learning limited to a few individuals who are gifted for language learning Gynan (1989) conducted a similar study and reported that some learners believe that pronunciation is the most important aspect

of L2 learning Some others prefer other learning practices, such as vocabulary, translation, communication, traveling to a country where the language is spoken, or making friends As is apparent from these results, it is quite conceivable that such erroneous beliefs may make the students later become disappointed and frustrated For instance, if beginning learners believe that pronunciation is the most important aspect of L2 learning, they will naturally get frustrated when failing to produce perfect speech even after a lot of practice All of those faulty beliefs can play another major role in forming language anxiety

1.5.3 Instructor beliefs about language teaching

Instructor beliefs about language teaching can also become a source causing language anxiety because the teacher's assumption about the role of language teachers may not always correspond to the student's needs or expectations toward the him or her (Ohata, 2005, p 7) For example, when a teacher believes that his role in class is to constantly correct students' errors, some of the students might

become quite anxious about their class performance Young (1991, p.428) stated that the following teacher beliefs are associated to students‟ anxiety: a little bit of intimidation is a necessary, the instructor is supposed to correct every single mistake made by the students, group or partner work is not appropriate because it can get out of control; the teacher should do most of the talking; and the instructor‟s role is that of a drill sergeant Similarly, a judgmental teaching attitude (Samimy, 1994) and a harsh manner of teaching (Aida, 1994) have been shown to evoke feelings of anxiety

1.5.4 Instructor-learner interactions

Another constituent cause of anxiety is the relationship between instructor and learner which is closely related to a harsh manner of mistake correction Many learners feel that some error correction is necessary (Koch & Terrell, 1991; Horwitz, 1988) and they are more concerned about how (i.e., when, what, where, or how often, etc.) their mistakes are corrected rather than whether error correction should be administered in class In addition, the following characteristics of the teacher such as absence of teacher support, unsympathetic personalities, lack of time for personal attention, favoritism, the sense of being judged by the teacher or wanting to impress the teacher are also in relation to anxiety (Palacios, 1998) Moreover, Ando (1999) argued that having a native speaker for a teacher can cause anxiety because the teacher may lack the sensitivity of the learning process or the teacher‟s English may be hard for students to understand

1.5.5 Classroom procedures

Classroom procedures or class activities are also counted another source of foreign language learning anxiety Young (1990) proposed a list of classroom activities which are perceived as anxiety-provoking:

o spontaneous role-play in front of the class

o speaking in front of the class;

o oral presentations or skits in front of the class;

o Presenting an unprepared dialogue in front of the class; and

o Writing work on the board

Palacios (1998) found demands of oral production, feelings of being put on the spot,

the pace of the class, and the element of being evaluated (i.e., fear of negative evaluation) to be anxiety- provoking source Another practice that was cited as a

potential source of language anxiety by the students concerned calling on students one after another in seating order in the speaking classes These practices would frequently cause language anxiety for students

1.5.6 Language testing

This can be a further source causing foreign language anxiety (Young, 1991) which “refer to a type of performance anxiety stemming from a fear of failure” (Horwitz et al, 1986) For example, difficult tests, especially tests that do not match the teaching in class, as well as unclear or unfamiliar test instructions can all create learner anxiety

According to Young (1991), these six sources of language anxiety discussed above are interrelated Therefore, language teachers should be fully aware of these sources to lessen FLA in their students

1.6 Anxiety management strategies:

Many researchers, such as MacIntyre (1991a), Young (1991a), Phillips (1999), Foss and Reitzel (1988), Price (1991), have consistently attempted to elaborate teaching and in- class techniques to overcome and cope with students‟ speaking anxiety In relation to six potential sources of language anxiety offered by Young (1991), this section is designed to outline a series of strategies identified by researchers for alleviating language anxiety, some of which are associated with the learner characteristics, some with the teacher characteristics, and others with the classroom procedures

Firstly, to reduce anxieties related to personal and interpersonal anxieties as well as erroneous learner beliefs about language learning, Young (1991) recommends verbalization of any fears as a way to cope with language anxiety The teachers ask students to write their fears or anxieties on the blackboard in order to

share them with their peers in the class (Foss & Reitzel, 1988) This might be an effective method as students can be aware of the fact that they are not alone in their worries and they can see that language anxiety particularly in speaking is a frequent phenomenon Additionally, the technique adopted by Foss and Reitzel (1988) is interesting, that is using an anxiety graph in order to for students to recognize level

of anxiety of a given interaction To deal with anxieties stemming from learner‟s personality, Young (1990) suggested that providing supplemental instruction or a support group is clearly an effective way For anxieties derived from students‟ erroneous beliefs, teachers should “discuss with their students reasonable commitments for successful language learning and the value of some language ability if it is less than fluent” (Horwitz, 1988, p 286)

Secondly, it is necessary to consider some solutions to deal with anxieties associated with instructors‟ beliefs and teacher- student interactions Regarding teachers‟ beliefs, Phillips (1999) suggests the administration of foreign language scales such as the the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz et al., 1986) and the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) (Horwitz, 1988) to language teachers should be used to understand their viewpoints Besides, Young (1991) proposes that teacher needs to be aware that his role is that of a

“facilitator” (p 431) who gives regular information about language learning The teachers should focus exclusively on “student- student interactions” rather than

“teacher-student communication”, and put the emphasis on “…conveying meaning rather than underscoring mistakes” (Phillips, 1999, p 144) To decrease anxieties stemming from teacher- student interaction, Young (1991) suggests that it is important to create an in-class environment where the learners feel more at ease The atmosphere must consist of “mutual acceptance and mutual respect, where students know how to appreciate other students, teachers appreciate students, and students appreciate the teacher.” (Young, 1999, p 5) Additionally, Young (1990) found that the students felt more at ease when the instructors deal with corrections

in non- threatening manners and when they are friendly, humorous and patient

Therefore, it can also be suggested that equal relationship between teacher and student is an important aspect to reduce language classroom anxiety

Thirdly, to lessen anxieties caused by classroom procedures, Young (1990) offers some useful suggestions: using more student to student interaction in pairs or small groups, role-playing with preparatory activities to instill class rapport, playing language games with an emphasis on problem-solving These in – class practices will emphasize on interactions, conversations and language use (Lightbown & Spada, 1993) and make language learning enjoyable and more comfortable Another method to reduce language anxiety is the participation to certain language clubs or extra curriculum activities, where the practice of self–talk could be central (Young,

1991, p.431) To cope with language testing anxieties, Young (1991) believes that teachers should consider the use of fair and comprehensive tests that accurately affect what has been instructed in the class

In conclusion, there is a broad range of methodologies developed by researchers to cope with students‟ language speaking anxiety and to improve their language competence The great consideration has been showed toward the strategies adopted by learners and the teachers should aware of these instructional techniques to reduce the amount of worry and fear experienced by students

2 Speaking

2.1 Definition of speaking

Speaking has been defined differently by a lot of researchers Brown (2001) defined

speaking as “spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterance, in range of

pronunciation There is often a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, and speaker use non- specific references.” Florez (1999) refer

to speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves

producing and receiving and processing information.” (cited in Balley, 2005, p 2)

According to Bygate (1997), speaking was a skill which is often thought of as a

“popular” form of expression that uses the unprestigious “colloquial” register Speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill Mackey (1965) stated that speaking

was an oral expression and it is a complicated skill and it “ 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

Bygate, 1997, p 5)

2.2 Roles of speaking in language teaching and learning

Speaking helps to identify who knows or doesn‟t know a language and it is

a very important skill among the four basic ones When people mention knowing or learning a language, they mean being able to speak the language, (Pattison, 1992) The mastery of speaking skill is “the single most important aspect of learning a second language or foreign language, and success is measured in terms of ability to carry out a conversation in the language.” (Nunan, 1991, p 39) Kayi (2006) confirms that the ability to communicate in the second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learners in school and success later in every phase of their lives Learners often evaluate their ability and proficiency of second/ foreign language learning based on how well they feel they have improved

in their speaking skill In the classroom, teachers pay much attention to teaching speaking skill and they design a lot of speaking activities such as giving presentation, working in groups/pairs, role- playing, discussing and so on to get the improvement of students However, these activities are quite difficult and stressful

to language learners so they may suffer language anxiety

Due to the importance of oral skills in language teaching and learning, language teachers should pay more attention to teaching speaking skills It is necessary for learners to speak with confidence to carry out many of the most basic transactions

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

1 Setting

The study was conducted at Academy of Policy and Development All students at this academy are required to complete five semesters of English as part of their general education requirements In the first and second semester (first year), students finish the General English program English is taught during the first and the second term with the total of 120 periods (50 minutes each) with the aim of developing students‟ ability of conducting English conversations in which students can communicate and interact with each other orally with fluent English The textbook chosen is New Cutting Edge, Elementary by Sarah Cunningham, Peter Moor

The number of first year students at APD is estimated at 328 They come from 5 faculties: the External Economics Faculty, the Development Plan Faculty, the Public Policy Faculty, the Public Finance Faculty and the Development Planning Faculty Their levels of English proficiency are different The students face a great variety of difficulties in learning the four language skills, of which speaking seems

to be the most difficult and anxiety- provoking one

2 Participants

The group of subjects for questionnaire was constituted by 50 first- year students To increase the reliability and validity of the research study, a random sampling procedure was applied

No and percentage of students

Less than 4 years 6 12%

More than 4 years 44 88%

Students’ profiles (total: 50)

on the basis of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope 1986) More specifically, items 1, 2, and 20 were respectively reconstructed from items 1, 23, and 21 of the FLCAS In the questionnaires, the respondents were asked to express agreement or disagreement to each item on a five- point Likert response scale (Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor

disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree) The data obtained from the questionnaire was

tabulated, presented, and frequencies and percentages were calculated

3.1.2 Semi- structured interview:

The second research tool employed in this study was semi- structured interviewing (see appendix 2) The major concern is students‟ opinion of why each problem of speaking skills, which was shown in the second part of the questionnaire, made them nervous and stressful in speaking classes 10 items for the interview had been prepared in advance in light of the potential sources of anxiety proposed by Young (1991) These questions were open enough to allow the interviewees to express their opinions freely

There are three parts to the interview For the first part, question 1 related to the subjects‟ experience of anxiety was raised The purpose of this part is to find out whether they had experienced the feelings of anxiety or nervousness before The

second part with 9 questions focused on the sources of anxiety on speaking classes Specifically, to probe anxieties related to student‟s belief as well as personal and interpersonal issues, questions 2 and 3 were designed Questions 4 and 5 aimed to explore anxieties caused by erroneous instructor beliefs about language teaching To examine students‟ attitudes towards the impacts of instructor - learner interactions

on the classroom atmosphere, questions 6, 7 and 8 were constructed Question 9 was designed to provide more information on anxieties related to classroom procedures Finally, question 10 was asked to know whether students felt anxious about language tests The last part of the interview (question 11) involved asking the subjects to make recommendations for alleviating speaking anxiety concerning both sides of teachers and students The data obtained from the informal interviews will be transcribed and analyzed so that the researcher of this study can gain a deep understanding of the problems, from those giving possible solutions to help students overcome their anxiety

3.2 Data collection procedure:

In the first phase, the questionnaire was administered when students had completed the second- term of the academic year 2012- 2013 The entire procedure took about 15 minutes of their class time

After the questionnaire data was analyzed, to gain further insights into the students‟ attitudes, opinions and beliefs, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 students The interviews were conducted in the participants‟ native language, which is Vietnamese, in order to overcome the incapability of self-expression in the target language The interviews were tape- recorded and transcribed for analysis The interviews were conducted in location students feel at ease and at time they suggested At the beginning of the interview, the students were explained clearly about the nature of the study The length of each interview was from 20 to 25 minutes

procedures, and language testing (section… )

While the data from the questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, the data from the interview were analyzed qualitatively The audio-recorded interviews were first transcribed by the researcher The researcher read through the transcriptions carefully and coded the participants‟ responses into meaningful concepts After that, the concepts were put into categories on the basis

of common themes These categories were given suitable headings like “personal and interpersonal anxiety”, “beliefs about language learning”, “personal and interpersonal anxiety”, etc., and were used to explain the phenomenon under investigation (English language learning anxiety)

For descriptive convenience, the researcher used pseudo- initials for each participant (A, G, H, K, and T)

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

This chapter presents the results of the study The data were organized and analyzed based on Young‟s (1991) six categories of FLA sources which will be discussed in more details under the headings below

1 Sources of foreign language anxiety

1.1 Personal and interpersonal anxiety

Table 1: Speaking anxiety associated with personal and interpersonal anxiety

The first two statements 1 and 2 (appendix 1) refer to students‟ personal and interpersonal anxiety when speaking English The data in table 1 shows that, 1st-year students at APD appear to lack confidence in their oral ability: only around 16% of the students felt sure of themselves when speaking English while 84% of the students partly agreed or agreed that they are not confident in their speaking ability

In addition to low self-confidence in speaking ability, another prevalent issue among 1st-year APD students is competitiveness: 43% believed they could not speak English as well as other students Based on the data, it can be seen that the survey students have the tendency to compare themselves with other students and form a negative self-concept, which may discourage them from speaking in class or hinder their performance in English classes

From the interview, in response to question 2 (appendix 2), all of the interviewed students (A, G, H, K and T) attributed their language learning anxiety mostly to personal factors As revealed by these students, the most common anxiety-generating factors which are related to learner‟s personality included: shyness,

quietness, reservedness and low self-esteem Several students claimed that their shy personality and quietness prevented them from performing well in class, which made them feel anxious Gradually, these students become passive learners and occupy the majority of the class Students H and G expressed that they always feel shy and reserved most of the time in their English classes so they constantly keep silent in thei speaking classes

Also, some interviewees seem to hold a negative thought about them They admitted that their low self – esteem or low self- perception obstruct them in the process of participation in the class The three male subjects (T, K and G) tended to assume that their English ability was limited which causes anxiety in their speaking classes

I feel that my English is not good and my communication is bad too I feel nervous when being called on by my teacher I wish I could express my ideas in Vietnamese, instead of English (Student T)

To be honest, I am not self- confident when I am asked to answer questions in English because I think that I cannot speak English well (Student G)

It is clear for the fact that individuals with a self-perceived low ability level in the target language are likely to be anxious because they may perceive themselves as less worthy than others and they perceive their communication as less effective than that of their peers When asked question 3 “Do you feel anxious in English speaking classes?” all of the five students who participated in the interviews replied “Yes” They responded to this question in a quite extensive manner by offering different factors causing their anxiety They also give some interesting and illustrative examples

Similarly to what has been found in survey questionnaire (item 2), competitiveness was reported to be the major factor contributing to anxious feelings in 1st- year students at APD Three among the five interviewees (K, G, and T) are concerned about their perceived poor performance in the class discussions or oral presentations compared to that of their classmates Student K, for example, shared his feeling of uneasiness in his English class He admitted that he never feels comfortable when

speaking English because he often compares himself with other students He felt so nervous because he did not want to be worse than others

These students agreed that, to some extent, competitiveness might be a motivation for their learning process However, they also pointed out that competitiveness had

a negative effect in most cases

The second reported source was fear of negative evaluation Three students (A, H and T) admitted that their feelings of apprehension in English classes are associated with various kinds of situations in which their knowledge and performance of English were evaluated by their teacher and classmates They expressed that they are just too self-conscious or sensitive of others' evaluative eyes because they fear

of being negatively evaluated by their peers and their teachers They did not want to create a stupid image for themselves The statements below highlight this issue:

Everyone‟s eyes in my class seem to seize my mistakes while doing my presentation If I get stuck they may laugh at me I really fear of being laughed by the other students who learn English better than me (Student A)

I do not want to talk in my speaking class If I make mistakes when speaking English, my classmates will think I have a poor knowledge so this thought irritates

me a lot (Student H)

In short, it appears that personal and interpersonal anxieties may be a potential source of speaking anxiety in the class of the first year students at APD

1.2 Learner beliefs about language learning

The next items attempt to find out the learners‟ speaking anxiety associated with learner beliefs about language learning Table 2 is the summary of the result of the responses to the items 3 to 6 in the questionnaire (appendix 1)