A Study on the Anxiety of the Low and High Speaking Achievers of the English Education Department of University of Islam Malang

Abstract

This research explained about the analysis of students’ anxiety in speaking skill at the third semester English Department of University Islam Malang, in academic year 2018/2019. This study used descriptive qualitative research method. In collecting the data the researcher used questionnaire and interview guideline. The questionnaire was adapted from Horwitz & Horwitz (1986) which consist of 33 items, with five point Likert-scale. This current research focused on identifying the contributing factors of students’ anxiety and to describe the type of anxiety that faced by low and high speaking achievers. The result of this research showed that both categorized students placed at “anxious” (low speaking students) and “mildly anxious” (high speaking students). It also gives a description that anxious students do not have a low score and mildly anxious students may not always have a good score. In this research, 2 anxious students are having a bit lower score from the other students, meanwhile 2 other students with mildly anxious having satisfactory score. The percentage of students’ response was also classed into three type of anxiety. 33.3% of students experienced communicative apprehension, whereas 30.3% feel anxious in test anxiety, and 36.4% of them were getting anxious in fear of negative evaluation. The last type of anxiety got the highest percentage. The students’ anxiety factors in speaking English language were the students had over self-prediction to say something in English, unreasonable confidence to speak up in English, sensitivity of anxiety, wrong attribution of body signal because they cannot express their ideas well in English, and low self-efficacy. Although the score of each student slightly different, it proves that every student must have their own anxious when speak up, whether they belong to students who have good grades or vice versa. Therefore, it is necessary for lecturer (English teacher) to know the level of students’ anxiety from the beginning of learning process in order to treat them properly during the lesson.