GENERAL SELF-CONFIDENCE AND ITS IMPLICATION ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN ORAL PRESENTATION

Abstract

In speaking course, the teachers usually askthe students to present their projects in front of the classthrough an activity called Oral Presentation. However,many of students are afraid of public speaking due tothe effect of self-confidence. This study is aimed to (1)describe general self-confidence among Indonesian EFLlearners, (2) describe their academic achievement in oralpresentation, and (3) find out the relationship betweenself-confidence and their academic achievement in oralpresentation. Correlational design is used to investigatethe existence or non existence of the relationshipbetween the variables. The subjects of this study are 68students at the second semester in English Departmentof one private university in Lamongan, Indonesia.Documentation and questionnaire are used asinstruments to collect the data in this study. Thefindings reveal that (1) the students‘ general selfconfidenceis quite strong, (2) the students‘ academicachievement in the oral presentation is good, and (3) thetwo variables show high correlation. Therefore, theteachers are suggested to enforce activities that couldincrease students‘ self-confidence which in turn coulddecrease their anxiety in public speaking.Key words: self confidence, speaking achievement, oralpresentation.