The Effects of Anxiety Toward Acehnese Students' English Speaking Ability

• Published in: Qualitative report Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 254 - 270
• Main Authors: Habiburrahim, Habiburrahim, Risdaneva, Risdaneva, Putri, Ghina, Dahliana, Syarifah, Muluk, Safrul
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fort Lauderdale Nova Southeastern University, Inc 01.01.2020; The Qualitative Report
• Subjects: Acehnese language; Analysis; Anxiety; Classroom Communication; Classrooms; College faculty; College students; Communication; Education; Educational Research; English as a second language; English as a second language learning; Foreign language learning; Islamic schools; Language acquisition; Learning; Learning Processes; Participation; Researchers; Second language learning; Speaking; Student Participation; Student teacher relationship; Students; Teacher education; Teachers; Teaching Methods; Training; Australia; United Kingdom; Indonesia
• ISSN: 1052-0147; 2160-3715
• DOI: 10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3639

In this study, we analyzed the effects of speaking anxiety of Acehnese students in English learning classroom by looking at the causes of students’ speaking anxiety and their strategies in coping with it. The researchers used purposive sampling to select the participants of this research. Ten respondents from sophomore students of Department of the English Education at Teacher Training Faculty of Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Aceh, Indonesia were selected by identifying their answers of Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety questionnaires developed by Horwitz et al. (1986). To have in-depth information on the subject matter, a semi-structured interview was employed. The results of this research showed that speaking anxiety caused some negative effects to Acehnese students’ speaking ability, which could be observed through the difficulties in constructing sentences and expressing the idea when they spoke in the target language. Low self-confidence, lack of competency, and being afraid of making mistakes were some of the factors considered as the major causes of speaking anxiety that could debilitate students’ classroom participation.