EFL Students' Experiences With Anxiety In Learning English Speaking: A Narrative Inquiry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31004/riggs.v4i2.1906Keywords:
anxiety, EFL Students, English speakingAbstract
Speaking anxiety in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning can significantly impact students' academic performance. This study explores EFL students’ experiences with different types of speaking anxiety and the strategies they use to manage it. Using a qualitative descriptive approach through narrative inquiry, data were collected from two students at SMA Nurul Jadid, selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was conducted following the Miles and Huberman model. The study identified six key themes: anxiety due to lack of experience and knowledge, anxiety during live evaluations, context-based anxiety (online vs. offline), anxiety under limited preparation, shifting perspectives on anxiety, and coping strategies. Common strategies included seeking support from trusted individuals and intensive practice. The level of anxiety varied among individuals, with distinctions between general and situational anxiety. The findings support the Foreign Language Anxiety framework by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope, particularly the components of communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation. However, a new insight emerged: participants reported lower anxiety in online settings compared to offline ones, suggesting that anxiety is influenced by environmental factors, not solely by personality traits. This highlights the dynamic nature of speaking anxiety in EFL contexts.
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Tee, xue ting, tjin ai tan joanna, and wirawahida kamarulzaman. “self-regulatory strategies used by malaysian university students in reducing public speaking anxiety: a case study,” 146–52. Atlantis press, 2022.
Teimouri, yasser, julia goetze, and luke plonsky. “second language anxiety and achievement: a meta-analysis.” Studies in second language acquisition 41, no. 2 (may 2019): 363–87. Https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263118000311.
Theriana, ana. “understanding the strategies employed by efl learners to overcome speaking anxiety in the classroom.” Nextgen education review journal 1, no. 2 (2023): 33–44.
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Boonsuk, yusop, fa-ezah wasoh, and bordin waelateh. “Whose english should be talked and taught? Views from international english teachers in thai higher education.” Language teaching research, 2023, 13621688231152194.
Botes, eloise, jean-marc dewaele, and samuel greiff. “The foreign language classroom anxiety scale and academic achievement: an overview of the prevailing literature and a meta-analysis.” The journal for the psychology of language learning 2, no. 1 (2020): 26–56.
Brinkmann, svend, and steinar kvale. “doing interviews,” 2018.
Brown, h douglas, and heekyeong lee. Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. Pearson, 2015.
Bryman, alan. Social research methods. Oxford university press, 2016. Clandinin, d jean. Engaging in narrative inquiry. Routledge, 2022.
Clandinin, d jean, and f michael connelly. Narrative inquiry: experience and story in qualitative research. John wiley & sons, 2004.
Creswell, jw. “Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches, vol. 1 (1),” 2014.
Denzin, norman k, and yvonna s lincoln. The sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage, 2011.
Dewaele, jean-marc. “Psychological dimensions and foreign language anxiety.” In the routledge handbook of instructed second language acquisition, edited by shawn loewen and masatoshi sato, 1st ed., 433–50. Routledge, 2017. Https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315676968-24.
Dewaele, jean-marc, kazuya saito, and florentina halimi. “how teacher behaviour shapes foreign language learners’ enjoyment, anxiety and attitudes/motivation: a mixed modelling longitudinal investigation.” Language teaching research, 2022, 13621688221089601.
Dewaele, jean-marc, john witney, kazuya saito, and livia dewaele. “foreign language enjoyment and anxiety: the effect of teacher and learner variables.” Language teaching research 22, no. 6 (2018): 676–97.
Dewey, john. “Experience and education. In the educational forum (vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 241-252),” 1986.
Dornyei, zoltan, and stephen ryan. The psychology of the language learner revisited. Routledge, 2015.
Dweck, carol s. “can personality be changed? The role of beliefs in personality and change.” Current directions in psychological science 17, no. 6 (2008): 391–94.
Elahi shirvan, majid, gholam hassan khajavy, peter d. Macintyre, and tahereh taherian. “a meta-analysis of l2 willingness to communicate and its three high-evidence correlates.” Journal of psycholinguistic research 48, no. 6 (december 2019): 1241–67. Https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09656-9.
Glaser, barney g. “Naturalist inquiry’ and grounded theory,” vol. 5, 2004.
Gregersen, tammy. “Dynamic properties of language anxiety.” Studies in second language learning and teaching 10, no. 1 (2020): 67–87.
Gregersen, tammy, and peter d macintyre. Optimizing language learners’ nonverbal behavior: from tenet to technique. Vol. 112. Multilingual matters, 2017.
Gumartifa, asti, and indawan syahri. “english speaking anxiety in language learning classroom,” 2021.
Horwitz, elaine k, michael b horwitz, and joann cope. “foreign language classroom anxiety.” The modern language journal 70, no. 2 (1986): 125–32.
Hunutlu, sadiman. “self-regulation strategies in online efl/esl learning: a systematic review.” Studies in self-access learning journal 14, no. 2 (2023).
Jin, yinxing, lawrence jun zhang, and peter d. Macintyre. “Contracting students for the reduction of foreign language classroom anxiety: an approach nurturing positive mindsets and behaviors.” Frontiers in psychology 11 (july 14, 2020): 1471. Https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01471.
Kalaja, paula, and sílvia melo-pfeifer. Visualising multilingual lives: more than words. Vol. 2. Multilingual matters, 2019.
Kamarulzaman, laily murny, jasmin hassan, and mohammad taufiq abdul ghani. “integrating collaborative learning in english proficiency classroom: does it resolve students’ speaking anxiety?” Sains insani 5, no. 1 (july 13, 2020): 200–204. Https://doi.org/10.33102/sainsinsani.vol5no1.188.
Kasap, suleyman. “anxiety in the efl speaking classrooms.” The journal of language learning and teaching 9, no. 2 (2019): 23–36.
Kvale, steinar. “the psychoanalytic interview as qualitative research.” Qualitative inquiry 5, no. 1 (1999): 87–113.
Lantolf, james p, matthew e poehner, and merrill swain. The routledge handbook of sociocultural theory and second language development. Routledge new york, ny, 2018.
Li, chengchen, and jean-marc dewaele. “the predictive effects of trait emotional intelligence and online learning achievement perceptions on foreign language class boredom among chinese university students.” Foreign languages and foreign language teaching 5 (2020): 33–44.
Lightbown, patsy m, and nina spada. How languages are learned 5th edition. Oxford university press, 2021.
Lincoln, yvonna s, and egon g guba. “criteria for assessing naturalistic inquiries as reports.,” 1988.
Long, mike. Second language acquisition and task-based language teaching. John wiley & sons, 2014.
Lubis, nisa aldira, afrohul fadhillah, anisa may azura, susi sahmarito rambe, m arkan syafiq, and didik santoso. “the students ignorance in practicing english speaking.” Fonologi: jurnal ilmuan bahasa dan sastra inggris 2, no. 3 (2024): 205–11.
Macintyre, peter d, and robert c gardner. “methods and results in the study of anxiety and language learning: a review of the literature.” Language learning 41, no. 1 (1991): 85–117.
Mahmudi, nur, and mirjam anugerahwati. “anxiety level of an indonesian efl student in a public speaking class: a narrative inquiry.” International journal of language teaching and education 5, no. 1 (2021): 16–28.
Meliyani, yuli, masrupi masrupi, and dhafid wahyu utomo. “an exploration of indonesian efl learners’speaking anxiety.” Linguists: journal of linguistics and language teaching 8, no. 1 (2022): 1–14.
Mercer, sarah, and achilleas kostoulas. Language teacher psychology. Vol. 1. Multilingual matters, 2018.
Miles, m. B, and a. M huberman. Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. The second edition. Thousand oaks, ca: sage publications., 1994.
Mustamir, mustamir. “indonesian efl learners and speaking anxiety: insights from a meta- synthetic analysis.” English review: journal of english education 12, no. 2 (2024): 509–18.
Ng, kwan-yee s. “emotion regulation and foreign language anxiety: a mixed-methods study of chinese learners of english as a foreign language (efl) in hong kong,” 2023.
Ölmezer öztürk, elçin, and gökhan öztürk. “reducing speaking anxiety in efl classrooms: an explanatory mixed-methods study.” Porta linguarum revista interuniversitaria de didáctica de las lenguas extranjeras, no. 36 (june 21, 2021): 249–61. Https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.v0i36.18018.
Oxford, rebecca. “language learning strategies.” The cambridge guide to learning english as a second language, 2018, 81–90.
Pabro-maquidato, ivy marie. “the experience of english speaking anxiety and coping strategies: a transcendental phenomenological study.” International journal of tesol & education 1, no. 2 (2021): 45–64.
Patton, michael quinn. Qualitative research & evaluation methods: integrating theory and practice. Sage publications, 2014.
Rabbiani, fira santun. “the students’public speaking anxiety in academic presentation (a case study at the sixth semester students of english language education uin mataram).” Journal of english education and literature 1, no. 4 (2024): 139–52.
Richards, jack c, and theodore s rodgers. Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge university press, 2014.
Riessman, catherine kohler. Narrative methods for the human sciences. Sage, 2008.
Saldaña, johnny. “the coding manual for qualitative researchers,” 2021.
Subekti, adaninggar septi. “an exploration of learners’foreign language anxiety in the indonesian university context: learners’and teachers’voices.” Teflin journal: a publication on the teaching & learning of english 29, no. 2 (2018).
Suciati, suciati. “speaking anxiety in efl classroom: categories and factors.” Edulingua: jurnal linguistiks terapan dan pendidikan bahasa inggris 7, no. 1 (2020).
Sulistyaningsih, sulistyaningsih. “an analysis of efl students’speaking anxiety (a case study at pabuaran 1 junior high school in banten),” 2024.
Swan, michael. “the practice of english language teaching,” 2018.
Tee, xue ting, tjin ai tan joanna, and wirawahida kamarulzaman. “self-regulatory strategies used by malaysian university students in reducing public speaking anxiety: a case study,” 146–52. Atlantis press, 2022.
Teimouri, yasser, julia goetze, and luke plonsky. “second language anxiety and achievement: a meta-analysis.” Studies in second language acquisition 41, no. 2 (may 2019): 363–87. Https://doi.org/10.1017/s0272263118000311.
Theriana, ana. “understanding the strategies employed by efl learners to overcome speaking anxiety in the classroom.” Nextgen education review journal 1, no. 2 (2023): 33–44.
Tisdell, elizabeth j, sharan b merriam, and heather l stuckey-peyrot. Qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. John wiley & sons, 2025.
Woodrow, Lindy. “Anxiety and Speaking English as a Second Language.” RELC Journal 37, no. 3 (2006): 308–28.
Young, Dolly Jesusita. “Creating a Low-Anxiety Classroom Environment: What Does Language Anxiety Research Suggest?” The Modern Language Journal 75, no. 4 (1991): 426–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/329492.
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