An Investigation into University Students’ Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety

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- Hakan Karatas, Bulent Alci, Mehtap Bademcioglu, Atilla Ergin

In speaking situations, foreign language learners are often anxious about their ability in a foreign language. Ozturk & Gurbuz mentioned that Anxiety which is one of personality factors is a research area in foreign language learning field for so long. focuses on a number of personality factors which may have positive or negative effects in foreign language learning process such as extroversion, self-esteem, motivation, and anxiety. Common definition of anxiety itself is that an unpleasant emotional condition characterized feelings of tension and apprehension. Because of this, they put forward that it plays a crucial role in foreign language learning, and the researchers became interested in conducting research on anxiety and language skills based on the descriptive power of this foreign language anxiety model. And, speaking skill attracted the most attention. The findings of Horwitz’s (2001) study revealed students with high levels of anxiety received lower course grades than the students with lower levels of anxiety. Besides, the research of Saito and Samimy (1996) showed foreign language anxiety can have a negative impact on learners’ performance. There are many researchers who made investigation into students’ foreign language speaking anxiety. For instance, Price (1991) found out the learners were anxious about making mistakes in pronunciation.

Moreover, Balemir (2009) focused on the relationship between proficiency level and degree of foreign language speaking anxiety in English as a foreign language context. This study revealed Turkish EFL university students experience a moderate level of speaking anxiety. How anxiety affects the learning a foreign language is a focus in the current studies such as Horwitz’s (1986), and MacIntyre and Gardner’s (1994). Taking into consideration this focus, the aim of this study is to identify whether the students’ foreign language speaking anxiety demonstrate significant differences in terms of their gender, language level, receiving English preparatory training, and the kind of high school they graduated from. The research group included 320 male (65.6 %) and 168 female (34.4 %) English preparatory students at Istanbul Technical University. Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Questionnaire developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) and adapted in Turkish by Saltan (2003) was used as the data collection tool. Data were analysed using independent samples T-test and one-way ANOVA. According to T-test results, it was seen that female students’ score is higher than male students’. Also, it could be reported anxiety of students who have received English preparatory training are lower based on T-test results. Moreover, ANOVA results indicated the students’ language level and the kind of high school do not affect their speaking anxiety. In a nutshell, the foreign language speaking anxiety is affected by gender and receiving English preparatory training.

by Dini Dwintika Karuniati

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