Investigating Undergraduate Students’ Public Speaking Anxiety in their English Speaking Classes.

Abstract

Students must conquer their fear of public speaking before moving from academic to professional life. The purpose of this research is to investigate the reasons of anxiety in undergraduate students in their oral classes and to offer strategies to help them overcome their anxieties. By using student and instructor questionnaires, this study explored both of quantitative and qualitative research methodology on a sample of 35 students and 5 teachers from IBN KHALDOUN UNIVERSITY – TIARET faculty of letters and language department of foreign languages English section. According to the research , students who face difficulties with public speaking can perform well if they use specific strategies to overcome their fear ,the majority of the participants confess of being stressed when asked to give an oral presentation , while others admitted that public speaking anxiety makes learning English more difficult , therefore , studies has shown that public speaking anxiety can affect EFL learners on a medium level , which lead us into investigating this problem with hope of helping students like ourselves to cure this anxiety , providing many solutions and psychological practices approved by many teachers and specialists in the field .in the hopes of improving students oral skills and participations in both academic and professional life .