English Speaking Anxiety among in-Service English Teachers in Their Role as Students

Abstract

Foreign language learning situations are vulnerable to anxiety arousal and ‘speaking’ is reported to be one of the most anxiety-provoking skills. Keeping in line with this, the present study attempts to examine the level of speaking anxiety experienced by in-service English teachers in their role as students of MPhil/Ph.D. The study also aims at demystifying the major anxiety-evoking factors and the effect of some demographic features on FLSA. To this end, a small-scale survey from 30 in-service English teachers from two districts (Lahore & Multan) of Punjab was undertaken. Data were analyzed using SPSS 23. The findings of descriptive statistics revealed that most of the participants faced a medium level of speaking anxiety with their belief to speak better English at this stage which contributed to arouse their speaking apprehension, followed by fear of presenting in front of the class and finally fear of making mistakes. The results of the Independent sample t-test and Pearson rank correlation coefficient indicated that FLSA had a negative correlation with gender and district whereas a positive correlation was found with teaching experience. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that to alleviate the debilitating effect of speaking anxiety both teachers and students should be made cognizant of the priority of speaking skill which in turn can guarantee better learning outcomes.