The examination of the relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of middle school students and the opinions of teachers on speech anxiety

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of middle school students and the reasons for students' speech anxiety, the conditions in which speech anxiety is observed, and the solutions of teachers were scrutinized. In the research, mixed method was used since it allows more in-depth examination. In this method, the sequential explanatory design was used. The first stage of the study was conducted with 546 middle school students in order to determine the relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of middle school students. The second stage of the study was conducted with 20 teachers working in the same school that students are studying in order to determine the conditions that speech anxiety is observed, the reasons of these conditions, and the activities that teachers perform in order to eliminate speech anxiety with the opinions of teachers. The data collection tools of the study consist of personal information form, speech anxiety scale, speaking skill attitudes scale and interview form. In the analysis of the data, the IBM SPSS and MAXQDA 12 programs were used. According to the results of the study, there was a negative significant relationship between the speech anxiety and speaking skill attitudes of the students. Furthermore, teachers stated that they observe speech anxiety in students when they are speaking in front of a group, the reasons of speech anxiety are mostly the fear of being mocked and lack of self-confidence and that they create more appropriate speech subjects and anxiety environments in order to eliminate speech anxiety.

Speaking Anxiety of Students Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language: Instructors’ Experiences

“…The instructors explained the reasons for the speaking anxiety experienced by their students as the fear of being ridiculed, the thought of failure, lack of personal development, and the family effect. In the study conducted by Tekşan, Mutlu and Çinpolat (2019), it was stated that secondary school students in mother tongue teaching also experienced speaking anxiety most frequently due to the fear of being ridiculed. It can be seen from here that the fear of being ridiculed manifests itself not only in foreign language teaching but also in other course areas.…”

The Speech Anxieties of Secondary School Students

“…It has been determined that the participants try to relax and increase their self-confidence, especially by trying to think positively. There are studies showing that lack of self-confidence leads to speech anxiety (İşcan and Karagöz, 2016;Tekşan et al, 2019). It is also known that lack of self-confidence is an important problem in making speeches (Akkaya, 2012;Akif Arslan, 2012;Başaran and Erdem, 2009).…”

Speaking Skills Attitude Scale for Primary School Students: Validity and Reliability Study

“…[45] 2013). When the studies conducted on middle school students are examined, there are studies investigating speaking attitudes and anxiety in Turkish lessons (Albahlal, 2019;Tekşan et al, 2019;Ünsal, 2019), speaking success together with speaking attitudes (Maden, 2010) and attitudes towards speaking in English (Oradee, 2013). Among the studies conducted on high school students, there are studies focused on speaking skills within the context of teaching English as a foreign language (Sevinç, 2020), investigating speaking attitude together with English speaking skills (Kılıç & Tuncel, 2009;Pesen, 2016) and speaking attitude together with speaking anxiety (Kozikoğlu & Kanat, 2018).…”