The Effect of English Language Anxiety on Speaking Performance of English Department Students

Abstrak Banyak ahli yang menyatakan bahwa kegelisahan dalam mempelajari bahasa asing, dapat berdampak buruk pada kemampuan berbicara siswa selama proses belajar mengajar berlangsung. Secara umum, kegelisahan berbahasa asing dipertimbangkan sebagai efek buruk dalam pembelajaran suatu bahasa. Namun, secara berlawanan, banyak ahli yang mendapati bahwa kegelisahan berbahasa asing dapat meningkatkan motivasi siswa untuk menjadi lebih baik selama proses belajar mengajar. Sebelumnya, penelitian di bidang kegelisahan berbahasa asing telah dilaksanakan untuk mengetahui efek kegelisahan berbahasa asing pada siswa di kelas academic speaking. Dalam penelitian ini, sebanyak dua puluh tiga siswa (5 laki-laki & 18 perempuan) kelas academic speaking A berpartisipasi dalam penelitian ini. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) digunakan untuk mengukur tingkat kegelisahan siswa. Kemudian, nilai dari FLCAS dikorelasikan dengan nilai ujian akhir sebagai representasi kemampuan berbahasa siswa. Dalam penelitian saat ini, data menunjukkan interelasi yang positif antara kegelisahan dengan kemampuan siswa. Meskipun demikian, beberapa hal lainnya perlu dilibatkan dalam penelitian ini untuk menjembatani perbedaan hasil penelitian antara penelitian saat ini dengan penelitian sebelumnya, yang secara umum mengindikasikan bahwa tingkat kegelisahan siswa menghasilkan korelasi negatif dengan nilai ujian akhir siswa. Kata Kunci: kegelisahan berbahasa asing, kemampuan berbicara, motivasi siswa. Abstract Many scholars consider that foreign language anxiety has notoriously inverted students speaking performance due to the learning of a target language. Foreign language anxiety has been majorly considered as debilitative factor due to language learning. On the other hand, however, some scholars have found that foreign language anxiety increased students motivation to perform well due to the language learning process. In advance, a research in the foreign language area was conducted to reveal the effect of foreign language anxiety among students of academic speaking course at English Department of Universitas Negeri Surabaya. To date, twenty three students (5 male & 18 females) enrolled in academic speaking course A was participated in the study. The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was administered to measure students anxiety level. The scores derived from the FLCAS were correlated with the students final speaking grades. The computation indicated positive interrelation between students anxiety and speaking grade. Nevertheless, some other issue need to be taken into account to explain the discrepancy research finding between the present study and previous study in which majorly indicated negative correlation among students anxiety level with their final grades. Keywords: foreign language anxiety, speaking performance, students’ motivatio