Speaking Anxiety of Preservice English Teachers at Tertiary Level

Abstract

The objectives of this study were (1) to describe the preservice English teachers’ speaking anxiety; and (2) to find out the teachers’ perceptions towards the factors causing their speaking anxiety to emerge. This study employed a survey research design, involving 112 preservice English teachers taken by using convenience sampling method. The data were obtained using a ready-made questionnaire modified by Yaikhong and Usaha (2012). The results showed that most of the preservice English teachers (58.03%) experienced low level of anxiety in speaking English, while 26.78% of them experienced medium level, and the rest (15.17%) had high level of speaking anxiety. In addition, based on the result of the questionnaire, all participants experienced all the factors of speaking anxiety, namely test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension. Besides, not only those negative factors were found, but most of the participants also expressed their comfort in using English making the results found possible to emerge.