An Investigation of English Language Speaking Anxiety among Kurdish

Undergraduate EFL Students

1.0 Introduction

English as an international language has become the most dominant language in the

world. Uses for a variety of purposes in different contexts including for social communication,

international communication, social networking, and education. (Latif, A. 2015).

To Doms (2003), among the variety of languages around the world English as an international

language has become for almost an individual’s life and it occupies all the features of everyone’s

daily routine life. Although in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq English has been adapted in both

contexts Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education’s curriculum and teaching

methods in the Kurdish universities and schools, speaking anxiety has affected the Kurdish EFL

learners/students (Ghorbandordinejad, F., & Ahmadabad, R. M. 2016).

Due to the significant impact on English language learners, many researchers have

studied the relationship between foreign language speaking anxiety FLSA. Horwitz et al. (1986)

generated a five-point Likert scale that intends to investigate the relationship between the

EFL/ESL learner’s speaking anxiety. As well as, high levels of speaking anxiety in EFL contexts

are lack to progress their student’s levels and obtain the expected consequences

(Ghorbandordinejejad, 2015). Therefore, that is the responsibility of teachers, Ministry of

Education, and Ministry of Higher Education to adopt/adapt the best strategy/technique to

promote the EFL learner’s passive mood to become fluent and across the process of

communications (Ahmed, N. F. 2016).

1.1 Research Objectives

undergraduate students at the University of Garmian College of Education Department of

English Language. Also, particularly aiming to decrease the EFL/ESL learners speaking anxiety

and improve their English language speaking performance.

1. Is there any significant relationship between gender and level of speaking anxiety?

2. Are there any significant differences among stages and levels of speaking anxiety?

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Anxiety in Second/Foreign Language Learning

Language anxiety has been regarded as the most influential factor variable in foreign/second

language speaking/learning anxiety. Krashen (1982) claimed that one of the features of learners

is an effective filter, anxiety might involve the process of learning and acquiring language. A lot

of EFL university students during the process of communication have been faced trembling and

panicking (McCroskey, 1977). As well as, he identified anxiety in broad-based as “an

individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with

another person or people’.

Horwitz and Cope (1986) were the first to deal with second/foreign language speaking

anxiety SLSA/FLSA as an isolated/ different phenomenon specifically to language learning.

They define FLSA as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, feeling and behaviors related to

classroom language learning”. Pertaub, Slater, and Carter (2001) suggested that anxiety usually

comes out when the EFL speakers want to convey a general/public speech or converse with

native speakers and non-native speakers since they have fear of being criticized and insulted by

the other people. Even, people are different that this anxiousness is unreasonable/irrational, they
can’t aid feeling anxiety, which can consequence in depression, panic, distress, trouble, and

frustration (Pertaub, Slater, and Carter, 2001).

According to Spielberger (1983), anxiety in language learning is considered is a

psychological matter on the part of learners. It has connected to our nervous system, motions,

and capability to learn a language that is also affected.

MacIntyre (1996: 56) claimed a context particular anxiety such as anxiety that comes “in a

specific/particular situation”. As well as, he referred that second/foreign language speaking

anxiety is connected to circumstances involved language learning that obliged learners to engage

the foreign language.

2.2 Language Anxiety a Gender

Gender differences have been claimed as one of the variables in language anxiety in which

females have greater benefits than males (Kamarul Shukri et al., 2009). It is regarded that female

learners are willing to learn foreign language strategies that give them the capability to be better

at language learning due to their “great social orientation, stronger verbal skills, and greater

conformity to norms, both linguistics and academic” (Kamarul Shukri et al 2009: 404).). By

contrast, a survey of previous studies revealed that gender has the most important effect on the

level of foreign language anxiety among students. It was mentioned that females are more

disappointed than males (Naghaden, et al., 2014; Park & French, 2013), although this belief is

not true every time because some other researches illustrated that male language learners have

more anxiety than female language learners in the variety of context during communication(Lian

& Budin, 2014) and few cases showed there is no difference in language anxiety among genders

(Alsowat, Bell & McCallum, 2012). Because of the controversial results on the effect of

language speaking anxiety between genders, this study aims to examine the differences between
Iraqi Kurdish University English Foreign Language Learners' gender differences male/female

students.

2.3 Previous Research

Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) were the first two researchers to conduct Foreign

Language Anxiety Scale FLAS as a study instrument that concentrated especially on the variety

of anxiety among foreign language learners in the classroom and out the classroom. Hortwitz, et

al. (1986) specified language speaking anxiety regarded on three different factors, which are

communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation, and a general feeling of anxiety in

formal and informal contexts. A result of a study showed that female students get more anxious

and tremble than male students while speaking in English in the classroom (Öztürk, G., &

Gürbüz, N. 2013). Also, the result of a study in Turkey resulted in No statistically meaningful

difference that was observed concerning students’ gender and anxiety levels. Some factors that

affected anxiety such as complexity in phonetics(pronunciation), being asked by teachers

directly, not getting the question asked by the teacher (Debreli, E., & Demirkan, S. 2015). A

study conducted in the University of Technology Malaysia UTM, the results obtained there is a

significant relationship between language and anxiety and years of learning English, while no

significant relationship was obtained regarding gender and age (Latif, A. 2015).

3.0 Methodology

3.1 Participants

The participants of the study were undergraduate students at the University of Garmian,

Department of English-College of Education. Including three stages sophomore, junior, and

senior students in. The number of participants was 134. They were all studying English as a
Foreign Language EFL. The number of male participants was 53 while the number of female

participants was 83 students.

3.2 Instrument

The data were collected through a questionnaire as the main instrument. The

questionnaire was selected from Horwitz's (1983) Likert Scale and the Foreign Language

Speaking Anxiety Scale FLSAS. The questionnaire implies 33 items in a Five Point Likert Scale

that ranges from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. The questionnaire was provided by the

researcher was written in English. The instruments consisted of two parts: Part A and Part B. Part

A was given to obtain respondents’ demographic information about their gender and stage. As for

the next one B, 33 items were replicated from Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s (1986) FLSAS

questionnaire.

3.3. Data Collection and Analysis

For this article, the data was gathered over a day in November 2019. Before the data

collection, the students were informed of the study, and the agreements were achieved. After they

had understood what they were asked to do, FLSAS was handed out and the data was collected

arbitrarily among the University of Garmian – College of Education – English Department

students.

The data was then analyzed quantitatively. The analysis aimed to focus on the different

levels of anxiety a student may experience in the English class. The students’ levels of anxiety

were divided into three levels: high, moderate, and low. The high level was determined from the

mean values from 1.00 to 2.50. As for the moderate level of anxiety, the mean value was taken
from the range of 2.51 to 3.50 while the low level, covered the mean of 3.51 to 5.00. The anxiety

levels and the range of mean values are shown in Table 3.3 below:

Table 3.1 Mean Value for Anxiety Level

Anxiety Level Mean Value (Range)

High From 1.00 to 2.50

Moderate From 2.51 to 3.50

Low From 3.51 to 5.00

The obtained data were analyzed using statistical analysis SPSS version 23. And

presented in the form of descriptive statistics together with the percentages and mean. From the

data, the language anxiety level experienced by the respondents and their relationship with their

demographic background (gender and stage) will be discussed. A one – way between – groups

analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to find the impact of gender differences on FLSA

scores in the questionnaire. The answer to each item in the questionnaire using the five-point

Likert scale had been converted to numerical values for statistical analysis.

4.0 Findings

This part shows the findings based on two objectives namely anxiety levels experienced

by the University of Garmian students in the English department, the relationship between their

background (gender and stage) with levels of language speaking anxiety.

4.1 Level of Speaking Anxiety Regarding Gender

Gender Level

Low Moderate High

23.51% 70.59% 5.88%

Female 13 0 2

15.66% 81.93% 2.41%

Table 4.2 Relationship between Language Speaking Anxiety and Gender

Gender Pearson
1 -.013
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .878
N 134 134
Language Pearson
-.013 1
Speaking Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed) .878
Anxiety N 134 134

Table 4.2 explains the correlation between Language Speaking Anxiety and Gender. The

Pearson Correlation illustrates a weak negative correlation (r = -.013). The Chi-Square test pf

independence indicates that there is no evidence of a significant relationship between Language

Speaking Anxiety and gender since the null hypothesis was not rejected where p =0.869 (p > 0.05)

as shown in the table above. Hence, we cannot conclude that language anxiety is dependent on

gender.
 Table 4.3 The Level of English Language Speaking Anxiety Regarding

Within Stages

Stage Level

Low Moderate High

Sophomore 5 46 1

9.6% 88.46% 1.92%

Junior 9 41 2

23.68% 71.05% 5.26%

Senior 7 35 2

15.91% 79.54% 4.54%

A one – way between – groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to find out

the impact of the stages level on FLSA score in the questionnaire. The number of stages were

three (2 = Sophomore; 3 = Junior; 4 = Senior). According to the results of ANOVA, there was

not a statiscally significant (p = .736) difference at the P< .05 level in FLSA scores for

sophomore stage (N = 52; M = 104.3654; SD = 10.49188), junior stage (N = 38; M = 105.1316;

SD = 14.09077), and senior (N = 44; M = 103.1136; SD; 11.22542), F(2, 131) = .307, p = .736.

FLSA doesn’t seem to depend on the stages of the students. The results sre presented in Table

4.4:
 Table 4.4 FLSA Between and Within stages

FLSA within and between stages Sum of Squares DF Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 86.221 2 43.110 .307 .736

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