Expressive Writing in Minimizing Students' Public Speaking Anxiety

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Many students of EFL find it difficult to deliver their ideas in front of audiences, eventhough they have capabilities to do that. It is found that the commonest problem comes from the students themselves, such as lack of confidence and fright of making mistakes. Therefore, students' anxieties to speak in front of audience is considered as an emergency issue in teaching EFL in Indonesia. Related to this probem, this study attempts to observe (1) what factors cause students' public speaking anxiety in EFL context, (2) how expressive writing helps students in minimizing their public speaking anxiety, and (3) observe the benefits and challenges for students in doing expressive writing. The data in this study were collected through observation, document analysis, and interview, then they were analyzed qualitatively. This study was undertaken in one university in Bandung. Four participants were selected purposively based on certain criteria. After all, it is found that there are four factors that might cause the students' speaking anxiety, namely lack of confidence, lack of vocabulary, fear of failure, and fear of negative evaluation. Regarding the benefits and challenges of expressive writing in minimizing students speaking anxiety, it is found that expressive writing helps students to have better speaking performance, lower level of public speaking anxiety, and better mental especially in emotion management, stress management, and problem solving. However, it is also found that the students have difficulties in encouraging themselves to keep on writing during the sessions of expressive writing, moreover, students need more efforts at the beginning of the expressive writing sessions.