Enhancing Foreign Language Students' Speaking Performance through Overcoming Anxiety

Abstract

Foreign language anxiety is considered as a very important issue that most foreign language learners suffer from. The present study examines the issue of foreign language speaking anxiety, and it aims to realize two main objectives. First, it aims to explore the causes that lead to students‟ foreign language speech anxiety, and the negative effects that hinder their speaking performance. Second, it aims to look for effective strategies that teachers and learners can use in order to decrease anxiety and enhance students' foreign language speaking performance. The study depends on two main data gathering tools: a questionnaire and an interview. The questionnaire is administered to eighty students of third year LMD of English at Mohammed Khider Biskra University. The interview is done with eight teachers from the department of English teaching different English modules at Mohammed Khider Biskra University. The findings of the study illustrate that most foreign language students tend to be anxious in speaking situations more than the other situations like listening, reading and writing. There are different factors that lead to students‟ foreign language speaking anxiety which hurdle their learning and their speaking performance. The outcomes also show plenty and divers strategies that learners and teachers can depend on to minimize foreign language speaking anxiety and that can lead to students' better speaking performance. The findings prove the hypothesis which states that anxiety is related to the speaking skill more than the other skills; thus, if we look for effective procedures to reduce it, we may help learners to enhance and promote their speaking performance.