Name: Ii Iftah Azizah
NIM : P17334122418
Class : D4-1A
JOURNAL ANALYSIS
A. JOURNAL IDENTITY
1. Journal name : International Seminar and Annual Meeting BKS-PTN Wilayah Barat
2. Volumes :1
3. Number :1
4. Page : 334-342
5. Year of issues : 2018
6. Journal title : AN ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARD THEIR
SPEAKING ANXIETY OF ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM AT
SRIWIJAYA UNIVERSITY
7. Author names : Ira Audina Pratiwi, Soni Mirizon, Zuraida
B. JOURNAL ABSTRAK
1. Number of paragraphs : 1 Paragraph
2. Page : Half page
3. Space size : 1.0
4. Journal keywords :This study is aimed at finding out (1) the level of students’
speaking anxiety at English Education Study Program at Sriwijaya University (2) factors
contribute to students’ speaking anxiety in EFL classroom (3) students’ perception coping
with their strategies when they speak in English. This study used quantitative descriptive
design. There were 73third semester students of English Education Study Program at
Sriwijaya University. The data were collected by giving PSCAS (Public Speaking Class
Anxiety Scale) questionnaire (Yaikhong and Usaha, 2012) and interview questions
(Rafieyan, 2016). The results revealed that most of the students (52%) were in the
medium level of speaking anxiety. Interview data showed that personal factors got the
highest contribution to their speaking anxiety (64%) and unfamiliarity with topic got the
highest percentage (95%). Meanwhile, personal strategies got the highest percentage or
50% and practicing more got the highest percentage or 95%.
5. Keyword jurnal : Speaking Anxiety, Factors, Students’ Strategies
C. JOURNAL INTRODUCTION
Speaking is one of the four major skills that students should master in English language
learning written in the educational curriculum of Indonesia at Senior High School. As English
Foreign Language (EFL) students, the students should be able to speak English in every
condition. One of the key successes of students’ to students’ to study foreign language is
when they can develop oral skill as their way to communicate with other people. “Speaking
skill in English language learning is very important for learners whether as speakers;
consciously or unconsciously people use their speech to create an image of themselves to
others” (Luoma, 2004). In reality, even though English has been taught for at least six years in
school levels in Indonesia, which in Junior High School and Senior High School level
(Curriculum, 2013) and also in many elementary schools as local content subject
(Curriculum, 2006), the students still have some difficulties in learning English whether it is
the productive or receptive skill, especially speaking. The fact that one of the problems in
Indonesia is many graduated students’ cannot communicate in English well (Alwasilah,
2000). To be able to communicate with people around the world, English speaking skill is
considered to be an important skill. Students should have a good command of communication
skills in English so as to prepare their future careers and lives.Nowadays, English has
transformed into a global language which became pre-requirement for many academic, career,
and social needs, including in Indonesia. In Indonesia nowadays there are some application
jobs that required the applicants to have the interview test with English as the language use.
That’s way mastering speaking skill is important for the students’ nowadays. In his research,
Togatorop (2009) mentions that students usually stay quite in EFL classroom because they
find the difficulties to control their emotion for example; nervousness, lack of self-
confidence, shyness, lack of motivation and boredom.
Related to that, on 21th of April 2017 the writer has the initiative to do the preliminary
information with four second’s semester students of English Education Study Program
Faculty of Teacher Training and Education at Sriwijaya University. The writer tried to talk
with each of the students. Some of the students said that they are scared if they have to talk in
front of the class. There are some factors such as lack of pronunciation, nervous or not
comfortable to speak in public, etc. Those are similar with the results that done by other
researchers such as; Ramesh (2012), Togatorop (2009), Mahmoodzadeh (2012), etc. One of
the students even said that he/she keeps silent during teaching and learning process because
she does not know what she should speak in the class. Other student said that she feels
nervous to speak in the class when other students could speak fluently than her. Those are
some perception of some students about their own speaking. From that perception it could be
seen that there is an anxiety that felt by the students toward their speaking in English. It is
also shown that each student has different perception toward his/her speaking. There is an
interesting thing from one of the students. She said that her parents keep telling her to learn
English because it is important to be able to speak English for her future life. It is related to
what the writer mentions above about how important speaking English to the students. Brown
(2007) states that personality factor is one of the factors that involve in students’ language
learning. In his book he mentions some personality factors including self-esteem, willingness
to communicate, motivation, anxiety, etc.
There are so many definitions of anxiety itself. One of them is from Chiang (2012)
defines anxiety as a synonym of worry, uneasiness, disquiet, disquietude and inquietude.
Most of the time students in Indonesia learn English as one of the subject in the classroom
with grammar and reading which have a big portion more than speaking and listening. Due to
that fact the students feel speaking anxiety because they are not accustomed to speak during
the English teaching and learning process in the classroom. Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope (1986)
found that made mistakes and thought as less capable could make the students afraid to speak
in foreign language. This can happen because lack of students’ knowledge about speaking
itself. In fact that most of the students are focus on the grammar while they are having the
conversation but the truth that in speaking, grammar is not the main factors that should be
consider by the students. There are other factors such as vocabulary and pronunciation. Even
though students speak English without good grammar but if they have a good pronunciation
and enough vocabulary, the partner still can understand the meaning. The study done by
Aydin (2001) in Turkish EFL found that learner personal factor was one of the four main
sources of students’ anxiety. In the field of linguistics EFL from recent research has showed
that there are 3 types of anxiety: trait, situation-specific, and state anxiety. Young (1991)
emphasizes that state anxiety is not a permanent feature, and it is a reaction that is triggered
by the conditions of a particular situation. Meanwhile, trait anxiety is described as the
personal feeling which naturally happens with the unique characteristic (Brain, 2002; Ellis,
2008). The differences between state and trait anxiety are; state anxiety related with health,
happens for short-term and unrelated to social-status. Meanwhile, for trait anxiety are
unrelated with health, happens for long duration, and usually happen for lower class
individuals. Last, situation-specific anxiety is anxiety that usually happen just for specific
situation for examples are interview, examination, etc. According to Horwitz et.al. (1986),
situation specific anxiety is the feelings of tension, nervousness, trepidation or uneasiness that
could disturb someone in performing well related with the foreign language learning. In this
study, the writer will not separate the three kinds of anxiety and call it all as “anxiety”. The
teacher should understand more about anxiety and the strategies to overcome it.Usually, oral
performance is one of the considerations in the factors of speaking anxiety which is one of the
most important affective variables that influences foreign language learning (Melouah, 2013).
A review of the literature reveals that there are two main focus on speaking anxiety, first
when the student are not confidence in speaking situation and second when the teachers see
the students’ performance in the classroom (Horwitz et.al., 1986).
One of the studies that conducted by Mayangta (2013) investigated the students’
speaking anxiety of Junior High School in Bandung. The result of the study showed that most
of the students were at midly anxious level of anxiety with no very relaxed student. Second
study conducted by Rafieyan (2016) was investigated the students’ speaking anxiety of
English Education in University Technology Malaysia. The result of the study showed that
assessing language learners’ speaking performance was the most anxiety provoking factor and
creating a fun environment was the most commonly used strategy to cope with anxiety.Third
study conducted by Yami (2015) was investigated Saudi ESL students learning English in
Australia. The result of the study showed that they were proximity to the opposite gender
inside or outside of the classroom (e.g., sitting next to or behind the other gender, or speaking
with the other gender) and a feeling of not being welcomed by one’s speaking partner. Based
on the explanation above, the objectives of the study were to find out: (1) the level of anxiety
experienced from students’ perception at English Education Study Program Faculty of
Teacher Training and Education at Sriwijaya University (2) how students feel about speaking
English in front of the class and to acknowledge the phenomenon of speaking anxiety in EFL
classroom (3) students’ strategies to cope with their anxiety when they speak in English.
D. RESEARCH PURPOSE
1. Find out what causes students to be anxious in speaking
2. Looking for solutions so that students are not anxious in speaking
E. RESEARCH METHODS
A quantitative descriptive method was used in this study to know the level of students’
speaking anxiety, factors contributes students’ speaking anxiety and students’ strategies to
reduce their speaking anxiety of English Education Study Program Faculty of Teacher
Training and Education at Sriwijaya University. The population of this study was 73 third
semester students of English Education Study Program Faculty of Teacher Training and
Education at Sriwijaya University. The sample was also73 students. All of them were given
the questionnaire, while only 20 students were interviewed. Purposive sampling methodwas
applied in selecting samples to respond to the questionnaire and random sampling was applied
to select samples to be interviewed.
The students were given the PSCAS (Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale) proposed by
Yaikhong and Usaha (2012) with the scale started from 1-5 from “Strongly Agree” to
“Strongly Disagree” that consist of 21 items with positive and negative statements to find out
the level of students’ speaking anxiety. After that, the students were asked with 5 questions
proposed by Rafieyan (2016). The questions were to find the factors contributed students’
speaking anxiety and strategies to reduce their speaking anxiety. Questions number 1 and 2
were related to the factors contributed students’ speaking anxiety and questions number 3, 4,
and 5 were related to the strategies to reduce their speaking anxiety.
To collect the data, the data from PSCAS questionnaire are analyzed with Excel 2010
version using the FLCAS, Liu and Jackson (2008) scale to categorize students’ speaking
anxiety level from high anxiety, medium anxiety, and low anxiety. The analyzed
questionnaires were put into percentage diagram differentiating the anxiety level experienced
by students. Based on the result of the analysis of the anxiety level, students answered the
interview’s questions to find out the source of their anxiety and their coping strategies in
speaking classroom was analyzed using the table that include some factors and strategies
proposed by Rafieyan (2016). Construct validity was used to check the validity and reliability
of questionnaire. The results obtained that the questionnaire was appropriate to be given to the
students with reliability score Cronbach Alpha .84. The result of validity of the test showed
that there were 21 out of 23 items of questionnaire that were valid and appropriate to be used
because have the factor loading >.40.
To check the level of students’ speaking anxiety, positive and negative points are
summed up by adding each answer point of each statement, the score of students’ anxiety
scale would range from 21 to 105. The higher the total score was, the more anxious the
student was.After collecting the data from the pre-test and post-test, the writer used SPSS 21
to analyze the data. Meanwhile, to analyze the interview the writer used the table that
proposed by Rafieyan (2016). The table consists of some categories of answers from the
students. After that, the writer will calculate the percentage of each category to find out which
category is more representative of the students’ answer.
F. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Based on the findings of this study, some interpretations are drawn in order to strengthen
the values of the study and elaborate the answer of the research problems.
First, most of the students both from Indralaya and Palembang class English Education
Study Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education at Sriwijaya University have
speaking anxiety in the medium level with 52% of them chose it. Meanwhile, 45% can be
categorized at the low level of speaking anxiety and 3% of them can be categorized at the
high level. If we compare Indralaya and Palembang class, there were no students in
Palembang were in the high level of speaking anxiety. It can be assumed that because they
were compete each other both from Indralaya and Palembang class, the results also showed
that students from Palembang felt more confidence than Indralaya class so no matter topic
that given by the lecturer they will not feel very anxious.There was some factors contributed
students’ speaking anxiety that included through the questionnaire items. There were some
factors contributes students’ speaking anxiety that included through the questionnaire items.
They were communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and
comfort in using English. Those factors are similar with the factors that mentioned in the
literature review, Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope (1986) identified three components of foreign
language classroom anxiety; communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and
test anxiety. Meanwhile in this study appeared one more factor, it was comfort of using
English. Through the interview it could be seen that most of the students or 64% agree that
personal factors were the factors that give much influences to their anxiety in speaking.A
study done by Aydin (2001) in Turkish EFL also found that learner personal factor was one of
the four main sources of students’ anxiety. For Indralaya class there 58% of them can be
categorized at the medium level meanwhile for Palembang class there was 51%. In personal
factor itself, among the four subcategories, unfamiliarity with topic got the highest
percentage. So, most of the students felt the anxiety in speaking English if the students were
not familiar with the topic given by the teachers. Through the interviews personal strategies
got 50% of them choose it, followed by teachers’ strategies with 42% and classmates’
strategies with 8%.
Second, among 8 subcategories from 3 major factors that contributed students’ speaking
anxiety through the interviews, unfamiliarity with topic got the highest percentage with 95
followed by fear of making mistakes with 40%. In the literature review mentioned that study
done by Melouah (2013) showed that many students’ were afraid of using a foreign language
meanwhile, in this study students’ are afraid of making mistakes while using foreign
language.In teachers’ factors among 20 students there were 10 students or 50% agreed that
they felt anxious if the teacher assessed their performance. This factor was similar with the
study by Horwitz et.al (1986) mentioned that students were aware that speaking performance
was being monitored. Meanwhile, for the strategies; practicing more got the highest
percentage with 95% among other subcategories followed by creating fun environment with
60%. Study done by Rafieyan (2016) also found that creating a fun environment was the most
commonly used strategy to cope with anxiety. It could be seen that there was the relationship
between the factors and the strategies that suggested through the interviews. Most of the
students agreed they could anxious if they were unfamiliar with the topic and the strategy that
suggested by the students was practicing more. So, if the students got a lot of practice it could
help them to reduce their anxiety to speak even though they got much variance of topics.
Third, from the result of interview among 20 students there were 7 students or 35% of
them agreed that they need the support from their classmates to help them reduce their
speaking anxiety. There was a relationship with the result of study done by Yami (2015), a
feeling of not welcomed by one’s speaking partner was one of the factors of students’ anxiety.
So, the relationship was the students’ need their classmates’ support and attention in order to
help them reducing their speaking anxiety. There were some similarities between the results
of this study with the previous related study that mentioned in the literature review. First was
the study done by Mayangta (2013) that showed most of the students from junior high school
in Bandung were at midly anxious level. Those are similar with this study, in this study most
of the students were the medium level or more than 50% of them. Another study was study
done by Rafieyan (2016), showed that assessing language learners’ speaking performance
was the most anxiety provoking factor and creating fun environment was the most commonly
used strategy to cope with anxiety. In this study, assessing language learners’ speaking
performance also got high percentage which is 50% and creating fun environment got 60%.
The results of this study showed that most of the third semester students of English
Education Study Program at Sriwijaya University (52%) were at the medium level of
speaking anxiety, 45% can be categorized at the low level and only 3% at the high level of
speaking anxiety.They were communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of negative
evaluation, and comfort in using English. From this study, it can be concluded that factors
contributes students speaking anxiety were unfamiliarity with topic which got 70%.
Meanwhile, the lowest percentage for factors was being strict that only got 10%. In students’
strategies to reduce speaking anxiety, practicing more could help them to reduce their
speaking anxiety which got 95%. Meanwhile, the lowest percentage was conducting group
discussion which only got 15%. Those results actually similar with the previous related
studies done by Mayangta (2013) and Rafieyan (2016).
Based on the conclusions above, the writer would like to give some suggestions to the
lecturers, students, and further researcher. Firstly, for thelecturers, the lecturers could ask the
students to use English in their daily life, encourage the students so they would like to speak
English, and create fun environment to make them comfortable in the classroom. Secondly, it
is better if the students do a lot more practice inside and outside classroom. So, no matter
what are the topics the students still could handle and reduce their anxiety while speaking
English. Finally, the writer suggests that other researchers in the future could do the research
of anxiety in different skills such as writing, reading, and listening.
