Is There a Relationship between Communication Strategies and External Causes of Fear?

Abstract

Oral presentation skills are a universal skill that students need no matter what course they are doing at the universities. Many learners of higher institutions develop fear of oral presentations for many different reasons. The aim of this study is two-fold. Firstly, it is done to explore the external factors that cause learners to fear oral presentations. Next, this study is done to explore the perceptions of language learners on their use of communication strategies. This quantitative study is done to investigate the relationship between external causes of fear of oral presentation and the use of communication strategies. The instrument used in this a survey with three sections. Section A, contains the demographic profile, section B has items on the use of communication strategies while section C has items on external causes of fear of oral presentation. A summary of findings reveal that learners use different type of communication strategies. This study also revealed that there is no association between the use of social affective strategies and external factors. However, the findings also suggest there is also a weak positive relationship between external causes of fear of oral presentation with the use of fluency strategies, the use of negotiation for meaning strategies , the use of accuracy strategies and the use of message reduction strategies. Findings of this study bear interesting implications in the teaching of communication strategies as a strategy to reduce fear of oral presentations.