Levels and Major Causes of Saudi Students’ Speaking Anxiety (SA) in EFL Classrooms

Abstract

The current study examined students’ levels of English SA and its major causes. It adopted a mixed-method approach that included both quantitative (structured questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) data. Fifty first-year female Saudi secondary school students completed a structured questionnaire and 8 of them were interviewed. The findings revealed that students experienced a moderate level of anxiety when speaking English in the classroom. Moreover, students’ SA was caused by several causes, such as communication apprehension, low self-confidence, linguistic barriers, fear of negative evaluation, and fear of making mistakes. The study recommends that teachers should learn to detect and recognize the signs of students’ SA, motivate their students and help them to be more self-confident. Furthermore, they need to assure their students that making mistakes is an important part of the learning process and stress the significance of respecting classmates when they make mistakes. They also need to work on enhancing the linguistic components that cause hesitancy and anxiousness among students. Finally, teachers can consider requesting additional support, for example from the school principal, beyond what is available in the classroom.