Speaking Anxiety Among Malay ESL Learners at A Private University: A Gender-Based Study

Abstract

Speaking is found to be the most anxiety-inducing facet of language learning and is one of the many variables that could hamper successful language learning. Several studies have suggested gender to be a factor forspeaking anxiety, with some findings indicating speaking anxiety was more prevalent in female participants and others that detected no statistical difference between female and male participants. This present study aims to identify students’ anxiety levels based on the personality and environment variables and to compare the level of speaking anxiety between male and female students. This quantitative research involves 60 male and 69 female students from a private university in Perak who were second-year students taking an English Proficiency class that was carried out for 14 weeks. A 5-likert scale questionnaire adopted from Horwitz's Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was administered to the students at the end of the semester. Based on the study conducted, it was found that the participants experienced a moderate level of speaking anxiety in the second language classroom, with the males recording a slightly higher speaking anxiety level than females, and while personality did not show a significant impact on students’ anxiety levels, environmental variables did.Keywords: second language learning, ESL, motivation, personality, comparative