INDONESIAN EFL STUDENTS' ANXIETY IN SPEECH PRODUCTION: POSSIBLE CAUSES AND REMEDY

Abstract

This research examined what causes speech-production-related foreign-language anxiety among Indonesian students majoring in English Language Education. Furthermore, it also looks into whether and how self-reflective activities are able to help these students reduce their anxiety. The data were gathered from a qualitative research conducted on a group of Indonesian students taking a Public Speaking course at Sanata Dharma University. The subjects were given two types of questionnaires to explore the possible causes of their anxiety and their reflection on the process of learning the public speaking skills. The research results show three causes of foreign language anxiety: fear, shyness, and discomfort. The results also demonstrate that self-reflections helped the students deal with foreign language anxiety because they helped the students identify their strengths and weaknesses, conduct problem solving, and increase confidence.

Headnote

Abstract: This research examined what causes speech-production-related foreign-language anxiety among Indonesian students majoring in English Language Education. Furthermore, it also looks into whether and how self-reflective activities are able to help these students reduce their anxiety. The data were gathered from a qualitative research conducted on a group of Indonesian students taking a Public Speaking course at Sanata Dharma University. The subjects were given two types of questionnaires to explore the possible causes of their anxiety and their reflection on the process of learning the public speaking skills. The research results show three causes of foreign language anxiety: fear, shyness, and discomfort. The results also demonstrate that self-reflections helped the students deal with foreign language anxiety because they helped the students identify their strengths and weaknesses, conduct problem solving, and increase confidence.

Keywords: foreign language anxiety, speaking anxiety, speech production, public speaking, self-reflection

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15639/teflinjournal.v26i1/1-16

Performing spoken English in front of an audience can be a very difficult task for some students as they may experience anxiety, which hinders them from giving a successful oral performance. When such anxiety is experienced by students majoring in English Language Education, the stakes are higher since they are future teachers. In this profession, they are required to have confidence to demonstrate their skills before an audience: their students. Therefore, anxiety can pose a serious problem for this group of students.

This research embarked from the findings of a preliminary research conducted by the writer on students of the English Language Education study program of Sanata Dharma University. First, it was found that the students, comprising of various social backgrounds, often felt uncomfortable and nervous when they had to perform before their peers despite them having prepared for the performance. Such was indicated in their high reliance on speech texts. They hardly made eye contact to their audience, let alone communicated.

Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) in speaking skill is one element that many English as Foreign Language teachers (EFL teachers) do not focus much on. The idea of teaching the four basic skills of English, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing, was somewhat bound by the effort of transferring the knowledge and disregarding the students' anxieties in using English in the class. The main reason was because anxiety itself is a complex matter since it involved psychological condition of the learners.

Self-reflection, as one of the methods frequently used in literacy (reading and writing) skills, may be one of the effective methods to overcome such anxiety. In the case of the class that the researcher investigating, it was revealed that they were not provided with medium of self reflection after each of their performances. As a result, they were not given a sufficient amount of time to reflect back on what they experienced throughout the performance. In short, they were not equipped with self assessment skills which could be beneficial for their self improvement.

Another possible cause of not being able to find a remedy to reduce FLA was because self-reflections in speaking classes were done spontaneously and orally (in videos/audios and/or in written) and because teacher and peer feedback might be considered more important. This is true to some extent, but knowing one's improvements, progresses, and how, and why the anxiety appears from one's own point of view is equally important. In particular, the major purpose of self reflection in the context of speaking class is to give students an opportunity to evaluate their own speaking performances (Erdogan & Yurdabakan, 2011). There has not been much research done in relation to the use of self-reflection in the speaking classes in the context of learning English in the South East Asia. Therefore, the researcher discussed the function of selfreflections and how these activities can be a possible remedy to reduce FLA.

In a study done by Williams and Andrade (2008), it was found that written reflection can help EFL students to cope with foreign language anxiety. The self-reflection activities of course need a medium, i.e. a recording of the stu- dents' performances. In speaking class, students needed to have a certain source that could help them evaluate their own performances. Using video recording as a means to help students conduct written self-reflections also provided a fruitful and helpful insight in the students' effort to evaluate their performance (Nguyen, 2012; Christianson, Hoskins, & Watanabe, 2009).

Tsiplakides and Keramida (2009) in their research related to self-reflection and FLA concluded that one of the most important elements to reduce foreign language anxiety in a speaking classroom was "accepting the need for self worth protection" (Tsiplakides & Keramida, 2009, p. 42). This finding supported the importance of not only knowing the weaknesses, but also the strength because by knowing the strength, students were less anxious and thus foreign language anxiety decreased. Frolikova (2014) discovered that conducting self-reflections in the students' efforts to develop their speaking skills were helpful in that the students had the opportunity to reflect back on what they had experienced and plan their learning strategies.

Therefore, this study attempted to answer two research questions: (1) What causes foreign-language anxiety among Indonesian students majoring in English Language Education? (2) Are self-reflection activities able to help students deal with their foreign language anxiety? If so, how can they be used for that purpose?

METHOD

This research applied Burns' (2010) classroom action research since the main goal of the researcher is to find a possible remedy for the students' problems in the speaking class (Planning, Action, Observe, and Reflect). Since this is a qualitative research, each problem formulation was discussed thoroughly through narration and description to gain an understanding on the phenomena that happened in the Public Speaking classroom. The data were generated by using a number of methods, i.e. reflection sheets and video recording. The research was done throughout the semester, i.e. from August 14 to December 4, 2013. The research was conducted in one Public Speaking class the English Language Education Study Program (ELESP) at Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta.

The subjects were 24 English Language Education Study Program students. From the 24 students, 5 of them were male and 19 were female. Three students were at the age range of 25-34 years old, while the other 21 students were at the age range of 18-22. However the age difference was not the focus of the research. These students were selected because the researcher discovered that their grades in the speaking classes in the previous semesters were always excellent (98% obtained "A" grade). However, in the preliminary investigation, it was revealed that they did not have any knowledge as to why they could achieve the highest grade and they could never provide a logical explanation as to why they always showed a significant amount of anxiety whenever they were asked to speak in front of their peers.

This research used some instruments to gather the data, i.e. a clarification type of Dornyei's (2003) open-ended questionnaire for the reflections and FLCAS closed-ended questionnaire by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) to obtain the initial information of the students' foreign language anxiety. The data to answer the first question were obtained from the closed-ended questionnaire and the first self-reflection. The data to answer the second question were obtained from the second self-reflection activity.

In the Planning phase, the researcher had already found a significant problem in the students' speaking performance and thus the focus of the activities done throughout the semester was decided: using written self reflections as the chosen possible remedy and video recording. In the Action phase, the researcher divided the activities into two main cycles: (1) cycle 1: lecture on what it takes to be a good public speaker (the elements) - simulation - real time performance - reflection; (2) cycle 2: lecture on academic speech - simulation - video recording - reflection. In the Observation phase, the researcher gathered the data from the reflections, analyzed and interpreted them. The result of the FLCAS questionnaire (distributed on the first meeting) which identified the elements that caused students' high level of anxiety at the beginning of the semester was then calculated to find the mean for each item. The researcher used the result to gain an understanding on what the students felt when they were asked to come forward to speak in front of their peers. The result from the FLCAS questionnaire was then compared with the result of the first reflection (i.e. the first open ended questionnaire, which was conducted on the seventh meeting) in order to find the correlation. The second reflection (the second open ended questionnaire) was analyzed using Burns' (2010) inductive coding. This reflection was conducted on the 11th meeting in the semester after the students watched their recorded speaking performance.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Findings

In order to comprehend the reasons why students had foreign language anxiety, the researcher distributed an adapted form of Horwitz et al.'s (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). The results were shown in Table 1.

There were originally 33 statements in the FLCAS, but the researcher only used 16 statements which were suitable with the purpose of the research, i.e., statements that focused on speaking in public. Based on the result, it was clear that there was indeed a high level of anxiety among the students, especially in the area of having to speak in English in public because 9 statements out of 16 (more than 50% of the statements) is 50% and over. To connect the anxiety level with the class activities in Public Speaking class, the researcher dug deeper on the issue by distributing the first self-reflection in which it focused on the students' feelings before and after the performance.

In this open-ended self-reflection, each student was encouraged to write their true feelings before and after the performance. The students were not given rigid instructions on how to write the self-reflection in order to give them enough space to express their feelings. The result of the first reflection was categorized using the inductive coding. The results were presented in Table 2.

The second question dealt with the use of reflection in order to decrease the anxiety level that the students experienced throughout the speaking activities. The questions of the second reflection mostly dealt with the students' opinions on the benefits of self-reflection in the speaking class. The second reflection, which was an open-ended reflection, enabled the students to convey their opinions and feelings about the function of self-reflection in public speaking class. Therefore, the result was formulated in the form of common categories that students mentioned in their reflections. From the second selfreflection, it was found that all of the 24 students had some commonalities of topinions on the use of self-reflections in Public Speaking class, as shown in Table 3.

Discussion

Why does foreign language anxiety arise in Public Speaking?

Cause 1: Fear of not being able to convey the message well

Based on the result of the FLCAS, it was evident that students were already anxious with the fact that they had to speak in front of the class individually. Although they had been classmates since the first semester, they had an anxiety of what was to come in the class. They experienced the same thing, i.e. they would feel anxious whenever they were asked to speak because they felt that they were unprepared and that they were not confident with their English proficiency. Thus it was evident that they experienced foreign language anxiety.

Based on the first self-reflection, grammar knowledge, pronunciation, voice volume, gestures, and speech organization were the major causes in creating foreign language anxiety. These students realized that they should have good mastery in those elements because in this class, students were expected to be able to apply the knowledge through their speech competence. This result was in accordance with MacIntyre's (1995) result in that there was a strong connection between the result of oral speech and foreign language anxiety. He stated that "language learning is a cognitive activity that relies on encoding, storage, and retrieval processes, and anxiety can interfere with each of these by creating a divided attention scenario for anxious students" (MacIntyre, 1995, p. 96).

The first major cause that contributed to the fear of not being able to convey the clear message was from the students' perception toward their performance. Some students described that they felt that the speech content was not clear enough. Although they had practiced a number of times before their per- formance, they still felt unconfident with themselves, fearing that the audience would not comprehend their speeches. Others felt that their prepared speeches were not clearly stated and the organization of ideas was not well structured. Some others felt anxious because they felt that the content did not cover the basics of the elements needed. Therefore they felt anxious whether or not the audience would comprehend their speech content. These conditions heightened the students' foreign anxiety level. This result was the exact result that Horwitz, et al. (1986) found in their initial research on FLA, that is, that one of the causes of FLA was fear of negative feedback from the listeners.

The ability to master the content was also a major cause of anxiety. Many students described their increased level of fear and anxiety because they realized that they did not master the content well, although they wrote the speeches themselves. Some students wrote that they felt so bad about their performances because of the reason, although they had practiced many times. Students worried about the written speech and speech performance, and thus this produced a high level of anxiety. It was evident that the discomfort was one of the reasons for anxiety and fear to appear.

These conditions were also evident not only in this class, but also in other Asian countries. In China, FLA resulted from the lack of vocabulary, not confident with him/herself, and helplessness (Liu, 2007). Another research result revealed that FLA existed among the Indonesian students due to insufficient preparation, not enough confidence, and fear of not passing the class (Marwan, 2008).

Some other students had different experiences. These students were more concerned with their inability to convey the message well to the audience. They felt that although their written speeches were well written, they were not confident with their performance, and thus their fear and anxiety existed. These students feared that their speech would not be satisfying; furthermore, they felt that they would eventually forget the content of the speech in the middle of the performance. The fear of making the audience bored with their speech was also a source of foreign language anxiety.

Besides the speech content, students also felt anxious with their current ability on English grammar, pronunciation, and voice volume. Although they were in the fifth semester, many of them still felt insecure with their English competence. Grammatical mistakes such as deciding whether to use past tense or present tense was a constant source of anxiety. As a result, they were not confident when delivering the speech.

Pronunciation, for the students, was one of the factors that caused foreign language anxiety. These students felt that pronunciation was one of the important keys to ensure the message was conveyed clearly. However, many of the students felt their pronunciation was unclear, i.e. they often mispronounced some sounds that were not evident in their L1 (Indonesian language) such as [∫] for words such as she, sheet, and shirt, [ð] for words such as these, thy, and those, and [θ] for words such as this and that. The students indeed realized this condition, but somehow they did not do a follow up on which phonetic sounds that they needed practice on.

Voice volume was another cause of foreign language anxiety. Some students were not accustomed to using the appropriate voice volume needed in doing public speaking. They realized that they had to speak loud enough for the whole class to hear, but they failed to do so. Although they realized that in public speaking voice volume was one of the most important elements in a successful public speaking, many of them felt that their voice volume was not yet appropriate for such performance. Another aspect that justified this condition was that the students saw how the audience began to lose interest in their speech because of their weak voice.

Cause 2: Shyness

The second common factor that could be obtained was shyness. Shyness/shamefulness in this case was related to the students' discomfort when speaking in front of an audience, although the audience was their classmates. One student described himself as having stage fright because he realized that his speaking performance was not satisfactory, particularly in the aspect of gestures and accent. He realized that whenever he did a speech in front of his friends, he could not control his hand movements. He described that he felt awkward standing in front of his friends because he was not accustomed to speaking in public. Horwitz et al. (1986) distinctively stated that the inability to control stage fright and shyness due to the existence of the audience could create unwanted chaos in the speaking performance.

Cause 3: Discomfort

Discomfort was also one of the factors that create anxiety. While some students were quite comfortable with their own performances, others were not. These students felt discomfort rather than shyness. They said that they were not shy with their performances, but they were uncomfortable with their bodies. In other words, these students felt somewhat confused in controlling their body movements, facial expressions, and hand gestures. In their opinions, not knowing how to pose in front of the audience and the camera was a source of anxiety. They felt awkward standing in front of the audience and the camera, and thus they could not concentrate well in their speech. Other students had a different opinion about discomfort. They said that discomfort happened because they felt uncomfortable when people were looking back at them when they speak. They also felt discomfort because they felt that their English was not good enough, thus they were uncomfortable of having people listen to their speeches. Furthermore, they felt uncomfortable speaking in front of the audience because they were not accustomed to speaking in public on a daily basis.

It was believed that discomfort may arise due to the students' cultural background. Apparently, according to Cutrone (2009), students' cultural background gave a large influence on their speech production. Japanese EFL students, for example, had quite a high level of foreign language anxiety whenever they were asked to speak in English because, culturally speaking, they were not accustomed to speaking freely in front of an audience. Wang (2010) further found language anxiety could give an effect on the students' oral speech performance.

How does self-reflection help students in minimizing and overcoming the foreign language anxiety?

One of many useful ways of helping foreign language students to overcome their foreign language anxiety was through reflective practice. As had been previously stated, these students have never been exposed to selfreflection in the speaking classes in the previous semesters. A few have tried doing reflective learning, but most have not. Most of the students heavily relied on the lecturers' assessments and comments on their performances. These students were not given many chances to reflect back on what they did in their speech. After being given two chances of conducting written self-reflections based on their real time performance and their video performance, the students realized some important aspects that can be fruitful in their efforts to increase their speaking performance. Based on these results, the researcher found three benefits of using self-reflection in the Public Speaking class to reduce foreign language anxiety. They were: identifying strengths and weaknesses, conducting problem solving, and increasing confidence.

Realizing strengths and weaknesses

Realizing the strengths was the first benefit that the Public Speaking students experience when using self-reflections. Based on the students' selfreflections, it was evident that realizing the strengths was not a usual process for many of the students in the speaking classes. The main reason was these students were not given chances to conduct structured self-reflections after their speaking performance. Their performances were not recorded; therefore they did not have any videos or sources that can help them see themselves when doing the speeches. Student 5 said, "...with the use of self reflection in Public Speaking class made me to be able to see the weaknesses and excesses of my performance independently". Student 7 also said, "by using selfreflection, I get to know my strengths and weaknesses, especially when I have to speak in front of the camera or other people". Because of the situation of "not knowing" how their performances were, these students had difficulties in their effort to go to the next level of public speaking ability, and thus this condition increased their foreign language anxiety, since they felt unsure of their true ability in speaking.

Other students agreed with the fact that self-reflections provided them the opportunity to realize the importance of conducting self-assessments towards their own performances. Having been given this opportunity, these students were encouraged to be true to themselves. This meant that these students were given the opportunity to be honest with themselves because this step was one of the most important processes in achieving meaningful and successful learning. In her final self-reflection, student number 21 came to the realization that "admitting" her weaknesses had made her more comfortable to try to go to the next level. Student 17 also had a similar realization. Having been given the opportunity to conduct self-assessments on his own speaking performances enabled him to have a good understanding of his real-time level of speaking proficiency. He further noted that based on the self-reflections which contain his personal assessments on himself, he knew which speaking elements that he needed to work on to decrease his anxiety.

Conducting Problem Solving

Besides realizing the strengths and weaknesses, the students felt that selfreflections enabled them to conduct individual problem solving. As has been mentioned previously, these students were not given many chances to conduct structured self-reflections in their speaking classes. All of the students agreed that by having to go through the process of self-reflections, they were given a good opportunity to clearly see their strengths and weaknesses, thus they could focus more on the weaknesses and try to find solutions to overcome those weaknesses.

Student 16 admitted that after she knew her weaknesses, she could do some improvements in her next speaking performances. She realized that before she did the self-reflections, she did not have definite information about her own speaking performances. She has always felt something was wrong with her performance but she could not figure it out. Due to this condition, she always felt unsure of her speaking ability, and in the end, she always felt anxious whenever she had to perform. After conducting self-reflections, she realized that her weaknesses were not only her pronunciation and grammar, but also her hand gestures. After watching her video and conducting self-reflection, she realized that she was doing unnecessary hand gestures that were quite distracting. After some exercises, she was able to minimize her unnecessary hand gestures.

Another student, student number 9, felt that self-reflections enabled her to see her progress or regress in her speaking performances. From the selfreflections, she could identify her weaknesses, which was pronunciation. She has always thought that her pronunciation was clear enough, but she realized that there were some sounds that she could not yet pronounce clearly, such as [∫] sound.

Increasing confidence

All of these students realized that after having valuable information on their strengths and weaknesses and conducting problem solving, they were more confident with their performances. The confidence increased not only because they could identify their weaknesses and work hard to overcome them, but also because they realized that they had strengths that they did not realize beforehand.

Realizing the strengths was one major point that these students felt very useful in increasing their confidence. Through the self-reflections, the students were able to have an actual proof of their strengths. For example, student 6 was able to make her own list of strengths, which was an activity that she thought she could not do. After watching herself perform in a video, she made the second reflection based on the given guided questions. Based on the reflection, she realized that she already had some strengths that she should be proud of, such as good and appropriate facial expressions and appropriate rhythm. For her, knowing her strengths helped her to be more confident with herself. She also realized that her anxiety in using foreign language should not have appeared too many times because she already possessed some strengths that a public speaker had.

Some other students had a similar idea. Student 9, student 11, student 15, and student 23 had a similar realization, that is, they felt more confident once they discovered their "hidden" strengths. In their reflections, they stated that by doing self-reflections after watching themselves perform had given them an insight on what they already have. Student 9, for example, felt that self-reflection helped her in knowing herself better. She stated that through this activity, she was able to see for herself what others see in her. She further described that in the past she could only guess and hear from other people what her strengths were, but she did not have the chance to see it for herself. After watching her own performance and making a self-reflection, she discovered her true ability in speaking. She found out that she already had the ability to show her enthusiasm when she conveyed the message; she had the ability to communicate with the audience, an ability that not many of her friends had. Of course, this discovery was a breakthrough for her because she had a new realization of what she already had.

It was, therefore, clear that the reflective practice the students had done was beneficial and fruitful. Boud, Keogh, and Walker (1985) stated that when individuals experienced the reflective process, it meant that they were given the opportunity to reconnect with their past experiences, connect the knowledge with the current emotions that they felt, and evaluate the whole process in order to achieve a new perspective. Furthermore, Boud et al. (1985) described reflection from the context of learning process as, "...intellectual and affective activities which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations" (p. 19). Therefore, these Public Speak- ing students have achieved a new understanding of their own capabilities and incapability, and have gained a new appreciation of what they have achieved.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Based on the results and discussion, it was evident that foreign language anxiety appeared among the students and that self-reflection activities helped the students to realize their strengths, weaknesses and helped them to do problem solving in order to enhance their public speaking performance and increase their confidence. Self-reflections, for these students, supported their effort to experience a meaningful learning in speaking class. Self-reflection enabled the students to have a good comprehension of themselves as individuals. The researcher could also conclude that based on the self-reflections, the students were able to increase their confidence. They could have a concrete evidence of their achievements which they did not realize beforehand.

Therefore, as foreign language teachers/educators, it is imperative that we give great attention to the fact that foreign language anxiety does exist among English language learners and that we need to train the students to conduct selfreflections every now and then in order to assist them in monitoring their learning process and learning result.

References

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