Learners' speaking anxiety: a case of English L2 learners

Abstract EN

The study investigates the level of speaking anxiety of EFL students in new valley university in academic context.

in addition, it examines the factors of anxiety (communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety) that increased speaking anxiety in EFL classrooms.

the foreign language speaking anxiety scale (FLSAS) is used for quantitative analysis.

the sample of the study consists of 90 respondents.

data is analyzed using SPSS 28.

the analysis of the findings revealed that speaking anxiety is apparent among participants due to their low ability in the foreign language.

the findings indicate that the students experience high level of fear of tests with mean (3.47), high level in the fear of communication with the mean score (3.42) and moderate level in the fear of negative feedback with the mean (3.13).

fear of public speaking stems from their negative self-perception in performing in any oral task and fear of negative evaluation or feedback.

the results showed that speaking anxiety differs significantly over gender; females experience higher levels of speaking anxiety than males because they feel shy to speak a foreign language while males have more self-control over anxiety and are less competent than females.