MINI RESEARCH

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Lecturer: Ade Aini Nuran, S.Pd., M.Hum.

ARRANGED BY:

DEBY BONITA HUTAPEA 2183321006

MUHAMMAD ABDUL HARIS 2183121001

MUTHIA FADILLAH 2181121021

S1 ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM 2018A

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2020

Hypotheses
 Anxiety is defined as a state of uneasiness and apprehension of fear caused by the
anticipation of something threatening. According to Kirkwood and Melton (2002), anxiety
disorders are among the most common mental disorders encountered by public speakers.
People who feel anxiety while speaking in public generally tend to avoid situations where
they have to perform, but when they encounter such situations, they suffer intense distress
and anxiety. According to Kant (2000), people in general negatively assess and appraise
those who demonstrate their fears towards public speaking and fail to make a strong
impression through confident gestures.

1. Male and female are equally anxious in public speaking since this is a normal
physiological response.
2. The lack of confidence is the reason to be anxious during public speaking.
3. Audience size has a strong impact on performance and level of nervousness.
Collecting Data

1. First Journal (Students’ Speaking Anxiety on their Speaking Performance: A Study of

EFL Learners)

Speaking anxiety is commonly experienced by most EFL learners, but both teachers
and students are not fully aware of how to deal with this problem. The results of the data
analysis clearly proved that there is a significant correlation between speaking anxiety and
speaking performance. Besides, it is proved the statement that students with high speaking
proficiency also face speaking anxiety. Therefore, students and teachers should be able to
handle speaking anxiety together since speaking anxiety influences students’ speaking
performance. Self-reflection activity can be considered as a good activity to handle speaking
anxiety. It is supported by the finding in reference [5] that self-reflection activity will help
students to solve their problem, find their strengths and weaknesses, as well as build their
confidence. These aspects are important for handling students’ speaking anxiety.

The findings of this study contribute to the development of EFL teaching and
learning. In Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject in higher education. The
teaching of English is not only limited to the mastery of writing ability but also foreign
language communicative competence. This study helps EFL learners to identify speaking
anxiety as one of the barriers of speaking performance. The use of Personal Report of Public
Speaking Anxiety Questionnaires or other relevant instruments is strongly suggested to
overcome the speaking anxiety. Having clear identification of personal speaking anxiety
levels would direct EFL learners to anticipate and implement certain strategies to avoid the
failure in speaking class, as well as to try to solve their problems and achieve a better
speaking performance. Furthermore, the future researcher might also use the result of this
study as one of the baselines to conduct future relevant studies on similar variables.

2. Second Journal (Anxiety Level in Students of Public Speaking: Causes and Remedies)

This study was carried out to investigate the anxiety level in the students of public
speaking and to provide sufficient results which prove that this fear is very common among
individuals, especially among university students.
 Literature was reviewed to shed light on researches that have been conducted earlier
in the same area to validate the study and to build upon what has already been done. To
summarize, the research proves that fear of public speaking is a learned skill and can be
overcome by practicing and rehearsing before presentations or speeches and people who
experience public speaking anxiety can perform as well as those who have a good command
over public speaking. The following techniques can help students overcome public speaking
anxiety:

 The instructor needs to help students realize that being stressful is natural.
 Better preparation and understanding of the topic eliminates the chance of making
a mistake or getting off track during a public speaking activity.
 A moment of silence is nothing to be afraid of. If speakers lose track of what they
are saying or begin to feel nervous, it is likely that the audience will not mind a
pause to consider what the speakers have been saying.
 Practicing complete speech several times would certainly give the speakers an
edge. They can practice it with a small number of people they are at ease with.
 Speakers should seek feedback of the audience during practice sessions or can ask
someone to record the talk. Watching it several times for self-criticism also helps
facilitate the learning and improvement process.
 Better preparation also helps speakers recover quickly if they go off track or get
confused.
 The speakers should anticipate audience responses and queries that may be
generated during practice so that they could have confident answers.
 It is essential to focus on the material, not on the audience as people are primarily
paying attention to the information being presented.
 The speakers should recognize and acknowledge their success. It may not have
been perfect, but chances are that the speakers are far more critical of themselves
than the audience is.
 Joining an active public speaking forum would also benefit the students. Once they
get into the habit of considering themselves comfortable in an unknown
environment while speaking in public, the anxiety would automatically go down
and make the speakers feel at ease.
3. Third Journal (A Student’s Strategies to Overcome Speaking Anxiety in Public Speaking
Class)

Based on the discussion above, the previous research on speaking anxiety in public
speaking class and this research have shown many similar results. Anxiety is clearly an issue
in language learning and has a debilitating effect on speaking English for Mr. X. According
to Mr. X, there are various factors that contributed to his anxiety. The previous study and
some theories have proven the factors that caused speaking anxiety to Mr. X such as lack of
confidence, lack of preparation, fear of making mistakes and hate being the center of
attention. Those factors were discussed in this study, which deepened our understanding
about foreign language anxiety. The experiences of Mr. X provide a great deal of information
about students’ anxiety in public speaking. They offer insights on what may contribute to
their anxiety as well as what teacher can do to reduce the anxiety. Furthermore, Mr. X found
some effective strategies to overcome his anxiety. Based on the data obtained from interview
and personal narrative inquiry, it was found that there are some strategies used by Mr. X in
overcoming his speaking anxiety in public speaking class such as rehearsal, relaxation,
visualization, gestures and using note card. These strategies gave significant effect to Mr. X’s
performance during his speech and now Mr. X feels comfortable to speak in front of the
class.

4. Fourth Journal (“Why I Can’t Speak Up?”: Students’ Anxiety in Public Speaking)

All students have practiced English public speaking, some have started since middle
school and high school, each student has conducted English public speaking, such as speech
practice, storytelling, etc. The first time students practice public speaking, they feel nervous,
shy, fear of mispronounced and trembling. Almost all students feel more confident when
speaking in front of the public for the umpteenth time. While waiting for their turn to do
public speaking, students feel uneasy, nervous, and anxious. This happens because students
feel fear of making mistakes, fear of embarrassed, fear of being laughed, always thinking and
self-conscious. At first, students feel nervous, uneasy and anxious but when they start talking,
they feel calmer, than and not as nervous as at the beginning.
 Not all practices done by students are completed properly. Factors that make students
fear and not confident when speaking in public are fear of being laughed, fear of
mispronounced, fear of making mistakes, lack of vocabulary, memorizing but when practice
becomes forgotten. The way students do self-control so that they can complete public
speaking is to assume all audiences are friends, try to be confident, pray so that they are calm,
change the mind set of "I can” continue to try and not become a burden.

5. Fifth Journal (A study on the EFL students’ speech related anxiety in Taiwan)

To summarize, findings suggests that there are a lot of different factors that could
cause anxiety, such as different type of audiences, being grade conscious, and many others. In
reality, even though female students have more TPS, they experience more PSA than their
male student counterparts, and this is primarily because they (female students) are more
conscious with their grades. However, in a general sense, PSA is quite normal, it happens to
most of us. In the good side, the yearlong public speaking course program has positively
contributed to the overall students’ English speech proficiency. Moreover, the reported level
of PRPSA dropped significantly at the end of the course program. As this study is only
limited to the students of a technical vocational college, findings are restricted to this context.
However, with the recent influx of such type of universities in Taiwan, more studies are
urged to further develop new effective teaching methodology. In addition, factors such as
students’ personality, self-perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, intelligence, teaching style,
classroom and campus climate, and many others should be included in the assessment of the
various causes and implications of PSA.
Conclusion

This study was carried out to investigate the anxiety level in the students of public
speaking and to provide sufficient results which prove that this fear is very common among
individuals, especially among students and has debilitating effect on speaking English. All
students have practiced English public speaking, some have started since middle school and
high school, each student has conducted English public speaking, such as speech practice,
story telling, etc.

The first time students practice public speaking, they feel nervous, shy, fear of
mispronounced and trembling. Almost all students feel more confident when speaking in
front of the public for the umpteenth time. While waiting for their turn to do public speaking,
students feel uneasy, nervous, anxious. Findings suggests that there are a lot of different
factors that could cause anxiety, such as different type of audiences, being grade conscious,
and many others.

Suggestion

The teacher should give better understanding the problem of speaking anxiety, the
teacher can investigate a particular approach or methods that can help students to reduce
anxiety speak English which is needed in learning in front of the class, students need to be
involved to reduce anxiety in the classroom by realizing that the mistake is a natural part of
learning English. Therefore, should not discourage students from learning a language English
in the classroom, teachers also need to create and reinforce the positive energy and mindset
for students' fear and discomfort when learning begins.

The result, is that students can become more independent and more responsible for
their own learning. To English teachers are expected to be able understand the character of
each student in class. English teachers must be able creating a comfortable teaching and
learning process for their students and will also continue working towards positive
reinforcement attitudes in the teaching and learning process.