EXAMINING THE PREVALENCE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE SPEAKING ANXIETY AMONG BS LEVEL STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HARIPUR

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate English language speaking anxiety among the students of The University of Haripur at BS level. Specifically, the objectives of the study are, to investigate students’ anxiety level towards speaking English as a foreign language to measure the different level of speaking anxiety between male and female students and to identify the factors that cause high level of speaking anxiety among the students. Foreign Language Class Room Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) introduced by (Horwitz, Horwitz& Cope, 1986) was applied as an instrument to measuring the English language speaking anxiety level of the students.The questionnaire consists of 33 items, each one on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. In this research, Strongly Agree (scale point 5), Agree (scale point 4), Neither Agree nor Disagree (scale point 3), Disagree (scale point 2) and lastly Strongly Disagree (scale point 1) The data obtained was analyzed by using SPSS version-23 Windows and was presented in the form of descriptive statistics which include percentages, standard deviation and mean value. High the mean value more the level of anxiety. Results from the study show that, overall English language speaking anxiety of the participants is at medium level (M=3.0, SD=0.48). Level of speaking anxiety in FLCAS three factors CA ,TA and FNE is at medium level with mean values (M=3.07), (M=2.85) and (M=3.07) respectively. Female students are slightly more anxious with (M=3.10, SD=0.41) as compared to male students with (M=2.94, SD=0.51). The research concludes by bringing together the key findings, recommendations and suggestive areas for further research.

Keywords: Speaking Anxiety, factors, communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation.