The Effectiveness of Activity Based Four-Dimensional Integrated Strategy for Alleviating Speaking Anxiety

Abstract

Speaking in English is always a tough challenge for second language learners. It is a proven fact that anxiety is considered as one of the main factors responsible for speaking difficulty. An increasingly significant area of research and emerging trends in teaching and learning English language highlight speaking anxiety, methods, strategies and techniques that can be adopted to alleviate anxiety. Activity-based teaching is an effective and interesting method that can be adopted to enhance speaking skills of the learners. The present study focuses on the impact of group activity by incorporating a Four-dimensional integrated strategy: motivation, explaining rubrics, skill integration and grouping. Activity based intervention was given to 105 students who are pursuing Engineering Programmes in different disciplines in Chennai, India. Data was collected before and after the intervention to identify the existence of anxiety and to analyse the difference in anxiety levels. The results prove the effectiveness of Four-dimensional integrated strategy based group activity in alleviating speaking anxiety.