Finding A Balance in Self-Imposed and Other-Imposed Prophecies for The Fear of Oral Presentations

Abstract

Oral presentation skills is needed beyond the language classroom, and also beyond universities. Nevertheless, language instructors are the one responsible to teach learners good oral presentation skills. Interestingly, all other non-language courses would have some form of component of oral presentation assessment at the end of their course; hence, proving how important oral presentation skills are. Having good presentation skills enable students to function successfully in the future surrounding. Some students need good oral presentation skills for their future academic encounters, while many need it for their work environment. Perhaps it is the importance of having good presentation skills that is making many learners fear learning this skill. Fear of oral presentation can originate from many factors. This quantitative study is done to investigate the causes of fear in oral presentation among undergraduates. 56 respondents from a chosen public university in Malaysia participated in this study. The instrument used is a survey. Findings show that presenters manifest the cycle of fear when it comes to oral presentation. In addition to that, the findings also indicated that in order to “get out” of the cycle of fear for oral presentation, presenters need to learn to hide their nervousness and not reveal that they are afraid.