Rationale
In the global era, English as a language is considered one of the most common means of international communication in a wide range of areas, including economics, politics and education As a result, having a good command of English language is an advantage, even a must for people in non-English speaking countries like Vietnam
Recently English has been made to be a compulsory subject at schools and university in Vietnam Moreover, in 2008 Prime Minister announced Decision No 1400/QĐ-TTg that approved the Plan for “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008 to 2020” The goal of this project is that “by the year
2020 most Vietnamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use a foreign language independently This will enable them to be more confident in communication, further their chance to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with variety of languages This goal also makes language as an advantage for Vietnamese people, serving the cause of industrialization and modernization for the country” (MOET, 2008, p.1) Having such changes in its foreign language policy, the Vietnamese government believed that it could help improve Vietnamese people‟s English language proficiency levels, enabling them to confidently use English to communicate in the international communication However, despite many attempts made by the Vietnamese government, research has indicated that Vietnamese people still demonstrate limited levels of English proficiency The English capacity of Vietnamese people is limited (To, 2010) According to Le (2013) the English language proficiency of college students is very low and “many college graduates do not meet the foreign language requirement of the recruiters” (p.66) Le pointed out that the level of college students‟ is lower-intermediate after 240 hours of general English That is, they struggle with using English at work They feel anxious when communicating with foreigners and believe English speaking skills are among the most difficult skills when they learn
English Mounting evidence has indicated a strong relationship between language learning anxiety and language proficiency levels Specifically, Iakovos (2009) found that the students rather remain silent, mostly withdrawn and do not like to participate in classroom activities In fact, it is well recognized that foreign language anxiety is a rather pervasive phenomenon (Aida, 1994) Also, anxiety prevents a learner from achieving a high level of proficiency in a foreign language (Scovel, 1991) As a teacher of English, this concerns me Through a number of observations conducted during my English lessons, I have realized that my students often experience language anxiety in speaking lessons It is questionable if my students‟ limited levels of English proficiency, particularly that for oral skills, is caused by their anxiety when learning English While this topic has been researched extensive in other countries, research into this area in Vietnam is scant
The aforementioned reasons have encouraged me as a teacher of English at the college to conduct research investigating Vietnamese students‟ English speaking anxiety which is titled “ Anxiety in English speaking classes experienced by English majored freshmen at a teacher training college in Vietnam ” Hopefully, the researcher would make the contribution to complete the insightful understanding about learners‟ speaking anxiety, enhancing teaching and learning English speaking skill, which can lay a foundation for subsequent research.
Aims of the study
The present study has four research objectives First of all it investigated the levels of language learning anxiety that students reported when learning English speaking skills Secondly it measured the level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and students‟ self - perceived speaking proficiency Thirdly it examined the relationship between students‟ language anxiety and their self-perceived English speaking proficiency and their motivation Finally, it attempted to seek ways to reduce students‟ anxiety in speaking classes.
Significance of the study
The current study which explored the anxiety in English speaking classes of majored freshmen at a teacher training college is significant at both practical and theoretical levels At a practical level, the study identified the students‟ level of speaking anxiety, the relationship between speaking anxiety and students‟ self- perceived speaking proficiency and their motivation and possible ways to reduce anxiety in English speaking classes These findings may help significant others such as lecturers and students to find ways to reduce students‟ anxiety in speaking classes, which may help to improve the quality of teaching and learning English speaking skills At a theoretical level, the present study complements existing literature of anxiety as it addressed the gaps in this area The proposal would be a reference source for English language teachers when teaching oral skills Furthermore, the study is expected to contribute to the enhancement of teaching speaking skills and help to improve students‟ speaking participation and speaking ability at the college in particular and in Vietnamese schools in general.
Research questions
To achieve aforementioned aims, the study set out to seek answers to the following research questions:
(i) What is the level of students‟ speaking anxiety?
(ii) What are the levels of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and students‟ self - perceived speaking proficiency?
(iii) What is the relationship between English speaking anxiety and students‟ self - perceived speaking proficiency and their motivation?
(iv) In what ways can the teachers help reduce the level of anxiety in English speaking classes?
Scope of the study
While foreign language learners may experience foreign language anxiety when learning all the four skills, this study only investigated anxiety that students have during their speaking classes Moreover, due to the limited time, this study only involved the first year English major students in a teacher training college to participate in the questionnaires and semi-structure interviews.
Method of the study
The current study employed a mixed methods research design, comprising two phrases In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was administered to a group of first year students (N= 46) at a teacher training college The questionnaire was composed by a number of scales (1) anxiety in English speaking class adapted from Horwitz et al (1986), (2) motivation in learning speaking adapted from Ely (1986), (3) self- perceived speaking proficiency adapted from the CEFR The questionnaire was used to measure students‟ levels of English speaking anxiety, their levels of motivation while learning English speaking skills, their self- perceived English speaking proficiency levels, which addressed Research Questions (RQ) 1, 2, and 3 The questionnaire also aimed to examine the relationships between students‟ English speaking anxiety and their motivation and self-perceived English proficiency In order to dig deeper into the answers to the RQs, the qualitative phrase was conducted A number of face-to-face individual interviews with students (n = 7) were employed The interviews provided more depth to RQ 1, 2, 3 Moreover, the qualitative phase aims to identify possible solutions that teachers can do to reduce students‟ levels of anxiety while they are in English speaking classes (RQ4).
Structure of the study
The study is made up of three parts: Part A introduction, Part B development, Part C conclusion
This part covers the rationale for the study, aims, significance, research questions, scope, methods, and structure of the study
This part is organized around three chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: Literature review synthesizes the theoretical framework of the studies related to anxiety in foreign language learning anxiety, foreign language speaking skills and previous studies of language anxiety in speaking skills
Chapter 2: Methodology of the research presents the context, the methodology used in this study including the participants, data gathering instruments, data gathering procedures and data analysis procedures The detailed results of the survey and a comprehensive analysis on the data collected are focused
Chapter 3 : Findings and discussion consists of a comprehensive analysis of the data from questionnaires and interviews and discussion on the findings
Part C: Conclusion gives the conclusion from the results of the findings, implications, limitation of the study and some suggestions for further study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
English speaking anxiety
1.3.1 Anxiety in English speaking skills
Speaking has been generally recognized as the most anxiety provoking skill associated with foreign language learning According to Horwitz et al (1986), anxiety is a major obstacle to be overcome in learning to speak another language Indeed, Horwitz and Young (1991) points out that speaking is problematic because the spontaneity allows the speaker no preparation time in which to monitor and correct what he or she wants to say, thus the risk of being wrong in an oral class is high
Students with anxiety will have difficulty concentrating and processing input in class and consequently the output of the language is negatively affected They tend to hesitate to volunteer to participate in activities in activities and they are unwilling to take risks They are apprehensive, worried and even fearful in the classroom (MacIntyre & Gardner 1991) Such conditions interfere with learning and anxious students are thus lack of many opportunities to practice the target language Anxiety is therefore considered a major obstacle to developing language skills, and particularly speaking skills．
When students are nervous, they tend to make more mistakes The more mistakes they make, the more nervous they will be, and the less likely they are to perform well at speaking skills thus resulting in a vicious circle The relationship between anxiety and speaking is not difficult to identify The important question is whether it is the anxiety that gets in the way of developing good speaking skills or it is the poor speaking skills that create the anxiety There is no definitive answer yet (Allwright & Bailey 1991) What is certain, however, is that anxiety can make the difference between success and failure in language learning (MacIntyre 2002)
1.3.2 Sources of foreign language anxiety and speaking anxiety
According to Aydın (2001) there were four main sources of anxiety in speaking classes including the learners‟ personal reasons, the teacher‟s manner in the classroom, learners‟ beliefs and the testing and teaching procedures
Personal reasons are related with a learners self-assessment of ability and self comparison to others Learners usually evaluate their own capabilities that can be positive or negative Research shows that learners‟ negative evaluations promote anxiety (Price, 1991) However, if this evaluation is positive, it helps learners to develop their language skills (MacIntyre, Gardner, & Clément, 1997) According to Kiato (2001) self-assessment of ability refers to self-perception of speaking ability, and it is considered to be a significant anxiety-provoking factor Kiation points out that among all the skills taught in the foreign language class speaking is usually the first skill that learners compare themselves with peers, teachers and native speakers Thus, it is reasonable to consider that low self-perception of speaking ability is likely to be a source of anxiety
Self-comparison to others is associated with learners‟ competitive behaviors in the class (Aydın, 2001) When learners realize that they have weaker language skills than others, they start to compete with them and this causes them to feel anxious Yan and Horwitz (2008) conducted an interview study on how language anxiety functions in language learning The researchers found 12 major affinities related to language anxiety One of the affinities was the learners‟ self comparisons with their peers The majority of the participants reported comparing their language ability to that of others
Learners‟ own beliefs about language learning have also been found to be related to foreign language anxiety and speaking anxiety Some students may think that particular skills are more important than others in language learning
According to Aydın (2001), learners may have unrealistic ideas about language learning, and these ideas could have negative effects on their achievement That is, if learners‟ beliefs do not match the real situations, they may start to feel anxious
(Ohata, 2005) Horwitz (1988) found that speaking was perceived as more difficult than reading, writing, or listening Kim (1998 as cited in Horwitz, 2001) reported that students in a conversation class were more embarrassed and anxious than students in a reading class
The way the teacher deals with the learners‟ errors is important because research has shown that learners‟ sense of self-efficacy in language learning and their motivation are affected by the kind and amount of feedback (positive or negative) they receive (Williams & Burden, 1997, cited in Aydın, 2001) The teachers‟ manner of error correction has been assumed to be an anxiety-provoking factor In addition to the ways of error correction, some attitudes that teachers may have towards students have been found to be anxiety-provoking Cheng (2005) conducted a study to investigate the role of teachers‟ manner and characteristics in language anxiety The results revealed that teachers who were friendly, relaxed and patient were found to reduce anxiety However, teachers who give unexpected quizzes were found to be anxiety-provoking In addition, being a poor communicator, unpredictable and rigid were some anxiety-provoking teacher characteristics When the teacher ignores the efforts that some students make or only praises successful students, it can cause anxiety (Aydın, 2001)
Speaking classes usually involve several different activities such as role plays, pair work or presentations that require learners to participate orally Research has shown that learners feel rather anxious when they are supposed to speak in front of the teacher and the class, and the majority of learners find giving presentations anxiety provoking (Aydın, 2001; Woodrow, 2006; Young, 1991) The main reason for getting anxious in giving presentations is “the feeling of conspicuousness and fear of negative evaluation” (Aydın, 2001, p 111) The study conducted by Cheng (2005) indicated that speaking in front of the class was the major anxiety-provoking factor In addition to public speaking activities, being called on by the teacher has been found to be another anxiety-provoking situation Wửrde (2003) found that the participants did not want to be called on by the teacher Koch and Terell (1991) conducted a study to investigate the techniques and activities that can reduce the amount of anxiety in the class, and they found that the participants did not like being nominated by the teacher, and that they felt more relaxed in group and pair work activities
In addition to teaching procedures, research has shown that most students feel anxious in testing situations due to worrying about getting low marks and not satisfy their high expectations (Aydın, 2001; Ohata, 2005) Research has also shown that students with high test anxiety are less successful in language tests Phillips (1992) who analyzed the effects of language anxiety on oral tests found that slightly anxious students performed better than highly anxious students, and they used more complex structures than highly anxious students
1.3.3 Previous studies of foreign language anxiety in speaking skills
Language anxiety has attracted the attention of many researchers (Horwitz,
2010) The results of their studies contribute to understanding how language learners‟ feelings of language anxiety interact with the process of acquiring a foreign or second language (MacIntyre, 1995; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989; Piechurska-Kuciel, 2008) A learner in a foreign language classroom may experience, among other things, “the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a second language” (MacIntyre, 1999, p 27), which denotes language anxiety It may be mani- fested by the physical symptoms of nervousness, for instance sweating, heart pounding or feeling cold, as well as impaired cognitive abilities such as limited performance, creativity and concentration (Woodrow, 2006, p 310)
Horwitz et al (1986) was one of the pioneers to conduct a study on foreign language anxiety One valuable contribution of Horwitz et al‟s research is that it offers a Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) to explore second language anxiety as a specific of its type The FLCAS consisted of 33 items divided into three related performance anxieties intervening in classroom language anxiety namely communication apprehension (items 1, 4, 9, 14, 15, 18, 24, 27, 29, 30, 32), fear of negative evaluation (items 2, 7, 13, 19, 23, 31, 33) and test anxiety (items 3, 5, 6, 8, 10,
11, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28) The first one observed in oral communication contexts was a fear about real or anticipated communication with other people This type of anxiety may be manifested by a fear of speaking in class, called oral communication anxiety, or a fear of speaking in public Fear of negative evaluation was encountered when a learner fears being evaluated negatively in a range of social situations The last one, test anxiety appeared in contexts of formal evaluation, during which a learner experiences feelings of worry In Horwitz et al‟s study the Cronbach‟s alpha was 0.93 which is a representation of high internal reliability of the scale In Aida‟s (1994) study the reliability was reported as 0.80 The findings of various studies using this instrument for research were consistent and unvarying showing negative relationship between anxiety and achievement (Horwitz, 2001)
METHODOLOGY
Context of study
English has been made a compulsory subject in Vietnam at both lower and upper secondary level and an elective subject at primary level However, the English proficiency of most Vietnamese students is still low According to Le (2013), however, after seven years studying English at lower and upper secondary schools, the level of the students is just somewhere between elementary and lower-intermediate At tertiary level, English is introduced nationally both as a discipline and a subject (Hoang, 2010) Hoang explains that for those who are trained English as a discipline to get BA, MA or doctoral degree in English can become teachers, interpreters or researchers either in linguistics or in English teaching methodologies There are several institutions in Vietnam which train English as a discipline For pedagogical major including English language teaching major, there are a lot of colleges and universities which train students to be a teacher Basically, there are two levels of teacher training in Vietnam: colleges (3 years training) and universities (4 years training) The students who graduate from a university are eligible to teach at a university, a college or an upper secondary school and those with a college degree are only qualified to teach students at primary and lower secondary school In order to become students at these colleges or universities, the students have to pass the national high school graduation examination with separate tests in Maths, Literature, English and one of the subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, Geography, Biology, and History
The total scores in three of these tests are used to determine which universities or colleges, if any, the students will be accepted However, recently, the entrance marks for teacher training universities is low and it is even lower for teacher training colleges The minimum entrance mark for teacher training college is “a shockingly low 9 out of 30 in some parts of the country” (Le, 2017) Meanwhile, teacher training universities accept students with a 15.5 mark It can be said that the low required minimum scores show the students‟ lack of interest in pedagogical schools As far as the English language teacher proficiency in Vietnam is concerned, Nguyen & Dudzik
(2013) reported 83%, 87%, and 91% of teachers at the primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary level, respectively, were underqualified As a teacher of English a teacher training college, this concerns the researcher as the researchers‟ students who soon become a teacher get low entrance mark and encourages the researcher to find some solutions to improve students‟ proficiency especially speaking proficiency Of all the affective factors that affect language acquisition, language anxiety is the most negative one Language anxiety can hinder the success in foreign language acquisition
Hence, it is important that the researcher investigate the anxiety among the freshmen at the teacher training college
The study was conducted at a teacher training college which is located in Hanoi, Vietnam The teacher training college was established in 1959 During nearly
60 years of the establishment and development, the college continuously develop and contribute to the development of education in general and Hanoi city in particular
Foreign Language Department is one of the main departments of the college
There are 12 teachers in the department with experienced and good qualification in teaching English There are 7 teachers with Master degree and 5 teachers with BA degree of English linguistics Foreign Language Department is in charge of teaching English for major students and for non-majored students at the college There are 46 freshmen in the Foreign Language Department The first-year English majored students are learning speaking skills with course book named Innovation Elementary by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley (2005) The course book included 9 modules equivalent to 9 topics According to the syllabus students have two periods a week for speaking skills In addition to the time constraint for speaking, students do not have much chance for further practice Consequently, freshmen face great variety of problems with speaking skills, one of which is their anxiety when speaking English.
Research questions
As mentioned in section 3 of Introduction part, the study was carried out to answer the following research questions
1 What is the level of students‟ speaking anxiety?
2 What are the level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and students‟ self – perceived speaking proficiency?
3 What is the relationship between English speaking anxiety and students‟ self- perceived speaking proficiency and their motivation?
4 In what ways can the teachers help reduce the level of anxiety in English speaking classes?
The study
The main contents of this section include participants of the study, the data collection instruments namely questionnaires and interviews, the data gathering procedures and the data analysis procedures
The respondents for questionnaires were 46 students (n = 43 females, n = 3 males) of the 2017 – 2018 academic year, aged 18 - 25, being the first year students majoring in English Their main field of study is English language teacher education
They had one semester studying at the college and one semester studying English speaking skills at the same time The students did not get high marks for English subject in the entrance exam Most of them come from rural areas and their speaking skill is not so good
After completing the questionnaires, the students participated in the informal interviews Seven students (n =6 females, n= 1 male) were invited to the interviews and all of them agreed The data obtained from the informal interviews was transcribed and analyzed so that the researcher of this study could gain a deep understanding of the problems
The present study used a mixed research method Two instruments used for data collection were questionnaires and interview The questionnaires were selected as the first tool for the process of data collection According to Dornyei (2003), questionnaires that is a relatively limited period of time to collect data, straightforward to process and analyze the data and appropriate for providing a general understanding of the subject matter It, hence, would be very useful for the researcher to investigate the level of speaking anxiety, the levels of students‟ motivation in learning speaking, the levels of students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency and the relationship between speaking anxiety, students‟ self-perceived speaking skills and students‟ motivation The general feature of questionnaires (length, layout, and topic), the main parts of questionnaire (title, instructions, questionnaire items, additional information, final “thank you”), questionnaire content and questionnaire items were carefully studied Therefore, there were 47 items in the questionnaire divided into four main parts The first part was the personal information about the participants The second part was the anxiety in speaking classes which was adapted from the FLCAS designed by Horwitz et al (1986) The 33 items in the second part is a five point Likert type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree The word “foreign language class” in the original version was replaced by “English speaking class” in order to be suitable to the present study The next 7 items (5 Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree) related to the strength of motivation developed by Ely (1986) This scale was slightly modified such as replacing the term “foreign language” with
“English language speaking” The last part was self-perceived speaking skill included two items to self-assess speaking skill adapted from the CEFR
Taking into account that the questionnaire was written in English and after presuming that the misunderstanding of the items could pose to serious problems to obtain reliable and valid result, the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese
Moreover, in order to see how these questionnaires worked in the process of data collection, the study needed to pilot the questionnaire The researcher, hence, asked the supervisor to check carefully before delivering to the participants Besides, in order to make sure that the instrument for the study were reliable, Cronbach‟s alpha is considered to be an appropriate measure of internal consistency within an instrument
Therefore, the researcher calculated Cronbach‟s alpha with the help of computer
Interviews were chosen as a follow-up step after questionnaires to triangulate the data and to provide further insights into their opinion of the problems of speaking skill which made them nervous and stressful in speaking classes which could be missed from questionnaires The data from the interviews were transcribed, translated into English and analyzed so that the researcher could gain deep understanding of the problems, from those giving possible solutions to help student alleviate their anxiety
The following section will discuss about detailed procedures for collecting data from questionnaires and interviews
The first stage of data gathering procedure was questionnaire distributions The questionnaires were administered in 2 classes when the students had completed the first semester of the academic year 2017 – 2018 The researcher attended the class, explaining the aims of the study and invited them to participate in the questionnaire
The researcher explained the students the purposes of answering this questionnaire are to collect the data about anxiety of students in learning English speaking supporting the research The researcher also explained any questions related to the questionnaire that the students were not clear during the process The entire procedure took about 15 minutes for each class
The second stage was semi-structured individual interviews Time for each interview was about appropriately 10 minutes on average In order to obtain reliable and valid result, the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese The author recorded the interviews by mobile phone and then transcribed After the interviews were transcribed, the responses were categorized from some factors cause anxiety in English speaking classes and some ways to reduce anxiety in English speaking classes
When all the questionnaires were collected, the researcher started to analyze the data The responses from questionnaires were entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 22 Before analyzing the data were screened for missing data and error data One case was removed due to answering “5” (strongly agree) and “3” (neither agree nor disagree for nearly all of the items) As such, a total of 45 cases were retained for further analysis
Descriptive statistics including reliability tests, frequency, mean and standard deviation and correlations were calculated for each item In order to measure the level of students‟ speaking anxiety, the level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and students‟ self – perceived speaking proficiency, mean analyses were used While examining the level of speaking anxiety, the researcher categorized the items into three main categories which are communication anxiety (CA) (items 1, 4, 9, 14, 15, 18, 24,
27, 29, 30, 32), Feedback anxiety (FA) (items 2, 7, 13, 19, 23, 31, 33) and Test anxiety
(TA) (items 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28) Correlations were generated to examine the relationships between English speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency and their motivation
For the qualitative data from interviews, the researcher transcribed and translated into Vietnamese The researcher read the answers of the interviewee several times and made the keys words and common concepts in bold Then, the key words and common concepts were categorized depending on how they related or differed from each other
In summary, this chapter has discussed methodologies used for the study It has stated the participants, data gathering instruments, data gathering procedure, data analysis procedure The next chapter will present the findings discussion of the data collected from questionnaires and interviews.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The findings from questionnaires
The findings from questionnaires were divided into four sections including the level of students‟ speaking anxiety, the level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and students‟ self – perceived speaking proficiency, the relationship between speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency and the relationship between speaking anxiety and motivation in learning speaking
3.1.1 The level of students’ speaking anxiety
One of the objectives of the present study was to investigate the level of speaking anxiety of the first year students To answer the first RQ “What is the level of students‟ speaking anxiety?” mean analyses were conducted
As can be seen in Table 3.1, the mean score of the items for Communication anxiety was 3.03 (SD=0.55), for Feedback anxiety was 3.33 (SD= 0.63) and Test anxiety was 3.07 (SD = 0.42) Among these three categories, feedback anxiety ranked the highest level, fear of failing in test was the second one with a slight higher than communication anxiety Oxford‟s (1990) key to understanding mean scores on SILL- based instruments with response scale range 1 to 5 was used to report the level of speaking anxiety in this study Average scores of 3.5 to 5.0 were defined as high level, 2.5 to 3.4 were at avarage level, and 1.0 to 2.4 were low level The mean for the total anxiety in speaking classes was 3.15 (SD = 0.31) which indicated that students experienced medium level of anxiety in speaking classes In addition, reliability analyses with Cronbach alpha were generated for the three subtypes of anxiety and total anxiety Communication anxiety, feedback anxiety, test anxiety and total anxiety were reliable at Cronbach alphas of 0.82, 0.74, 0.75 and 0.72 respectively
Mean levels, standard deviation and Cronbach Alphas for three Subtypes of Anxiety
Variables Mean SD Cronbach Alpha
3.1.2 The level of students’ motivation in learning speaking and students’ self – perceived speaking proficiency
In order to answer RQ 2 of the present study mean analyses were conducted
As shown in Table 3.2 the mean score for motivation in learning speaking was 2.49 (SD = 0.36) which revealed a moderate level of motivation to learn speaking
Students‟ self-perceived for speaking skills was assessed in terms of spoken interaction and spoken production adapted from the CEFR CEFR divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels, A1 to C2, for each level, it describes what a learner is supposed to be able to do in speaking skills In the present study, the researcher coded the level of students‟ self-assessment of speaking proficiency A1 to C2 by the number from 1 to 6 respectively As can be seen from Table 3.2 the mean score of students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction was 2.44 (SD = 0.86) and students‟ self-perceived of spoken production was 2.36 (SD = 0.85)
The mean scores revealed the low level of self-perceived speaking skills
To assess the reliability of the motivation measure, students‟ self – perceived spoken interaction and students‟ self – perceived spoken production measure, Cronbach alpha was generated Motivation has a Cronbach alpha of 0.53 Students‟ self – perceived spoken interaction and students‟ self – perceived spoken production had a low Cronbach alpha at 0.59 According to Pallant (2013) it is very common that short scales (those with lower than 10 items have low Cronbach alpha at 0.5)
However, outside Cronbach's alpha, corrected item – total correlation is also used to test the reliability The data will be accepted when corrected item – total correlation is above 0.3 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994; Hair et al.,1998) As no corrected item – total correlation were belowed 0.3, motivation, students‟ self – perceived spoken interaction and students‟ self – perceived spoken production were reliable in this study
Mean levels, standard deviation and Cronbach Alphas for Motivation, Students’ Self- perceived of Spoken Interaction and Students’ Self-perceived of Spoken Production
Variables Mean SD Cronbach alpha
Students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction 2.44 0.86 0.59
Students‟ self-perceived of spoken production 2.36 0.85 0.59
3.1.3 Relationship between speaking anxiety and students’ self-perceived speaking proficiency
The main focus of the present study was to examine the relationship between the three variables of speaking anxiety (including communication anxiety, feedback anxiety and test anxiety) and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency (including students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction and students‟ self-perceived of spoken production) As can be seen in Table 3.3, among the three variables of speaking anxiety, communication anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction (r = -0.43, p = 0.003) Feedback anxiety was not significantly correlated with students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction (r - 0.30, p = 0.042) Test anxiety was not significantly correlated with students‟ self- perceived of spoken interaction (r = - 0.27, p = 0.072) Total anxiety was found to have a negative significant correlation with students‟ self-perceived spoken interaction (r = -0.58, p = 0.000)
Regarding the relationship between the three variables of speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived of spoken production, communicative anxiety was not significantly correlated with students‟ self-perceived of spoken production (r = - 0.10, p = 0.478) Test anxiety was not significantly correlated with students‟ self-perceived of spoken production (r = - 0.24, p = 0.105) Feedback anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with students‟ self-perceived of spoken production (r = - 0.45, p
= 0.002) Total anxiety was found to have a negative significant correlation with students‟ self-perceived spoken production (r = - 0.47, p = 0.004) These findings revealed that learners who had lower levels of anxiety in real communication with others tend to self-perceive themselves with higher level of interaction in English speaking Learners have lower level of anxiety in negative feedback by peers or teachers may self-perceive themselves with higher level of production in English speaking In general, the findings indicated that learners who have lower level of speaking anxiety may have high self-perceived speaking proficiency
Correlations between the three Subtypes of Anxiety and Students’ Self-perceived Speaking Proficiency
Students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction
Students‟ self-perceived of spoken production
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
3.1.4 Relationship between speaking anxiety and students’ motivation
Correlations were generated for the three variables of speaking anxiety including communication anxiety, feedback anxiety, test anxiety and motivation in learning speaking As indicated in table 3.4, feedback anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with motivation (r = -0.47, p = 0.001) A Pearson correlation coefficient found that there was no significant relationship between communication anxiety and motivation (r = 0.01, p =0.932) Test anxiety was found to have no significant correlation with motivation (r = -0.31, p = 0.036) Total anxiety or speaking anxiety (included communication anxiety, feedback anxiety and test anxiety) was found to have a negative significant correlation with motivation (r = -0.45, p 0.002) The finding implied that students who have stronger fear of negative feedback by peers or teachers tend to have lower motivation to speaking in English speaking classes The finding also revealed that students with lower levels of speaking anxiety have stronger motivation for learning English speaking
Correlations between the three Subtypes of Anxiety and Students’ Motivation
* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The findings from interviews
3.2.1 The level of speaking anxiety experienced by freshmen majoring in English at the teacher training college
All of the participants (n=7) stated that they experienced anxiety in English speaking classes The anxiety, however, was different regarding the frequency A large number of interviewees (n = 5) reported that they suffered from anxiety in different situations and the frequency of anxiety was often Meanwhile the other two participants reported that they experienced anxiety in speaking classes The anxiety, however, aroused in some specific situations The following statements reveal responses of the former:
“I feel nervous because I am afraid that I can’t speak during my English speaking classes”
“I feel nervous and I am not confident to in my English speaking classes Even though I know the answer, I hesitate to speak.”
“I feel embarrassed and unconfident while I am speaking English.”
Interviewee 6 3.2.2 Sources of English speaking anxiety experienced by freshmen majoring in English at the teacher training college
Self – perceived speaking proficiency Self – assessment of speaking proficiency was found to be a source of anxiety
When being asked about speaking proficiency, most of the participants admitted that they were not good at English speaking skills This leaded to the feeling of nervousness in speaking classes
“When I was at high school, most of the time was spent on grammar instead of practicing speaking skills Therefore, my English speaking proficiency is not good.”
“To tell the truth, my English proficiency especially speaking proficiency is poor in comparison to most of the students in my class.”
The above quotations of the interviewees revealed that, one of the sources of anxiety in speaking classes experienced by freshmen was their self-perceived speaking proficiency For those students they may have the perception that they have done badly in the performance due to their low proficiency in English speaking They might have thought negatively and that they did not do well and their anxiety cannot reduce
Communication anxiety The qualitative data from interviews indicated that students were anxious because they were fear of communicating with others and expressing themselves in front of the others Three out of seven participants reported that they get nervous and confused when they were speaking in English speaking classes
“I panic when I have to speak in front of my classmates.”
“I tremble when I have to speak in front of a lot of people My face turns red and I can’t control my feelings.”
Linguistics difficulties Analyses of data from interviews revealed that factors causing anxiety in English speaking classes were due to students‟ low proficiency in English language or linguistics difficulties Six out of seven participants mentioned lack of vocabulary for speaking activities, fear of pronunciation mistakes and fear of grammar mistakes as the factors that make them anxious about speaking English For those students, linguistics difficulties can be an obstacle that makes them reluctant to participate in speaking activities in classes as well as provoke their anxiety
“I am worried because I am afraid of communicate in English My language knowledge like vocabulary and pronunciation is not so good.”
Interviewee 1 “I don’t know what to say when the teacher asks me to speak because of my poor vocabulary Moreover, I am not good at pronunciation so I usually mispronounce the words.”
“I feel anxious because I am lack of vocabulary for the topic My grammar and pronunciation are not so good.”
Fear of negative evaluations of classmates Fear of negative evaluations of friends was felt to be one of the main reasons for anxiety in speaking classes of freshmen as more than two third (five out of seven) of participants reported that According to students, they felt embarrassed when their classmates negatively evaluate their answers Also, students are afraid of being assessed as being low competence when they speak English Therefore they are nervous and hesitate to give answers in English speaking classes
“I am scared of being making fun by my friend if I make mistakes in my speaking classes That is an obstacle and makes me hesitate to volunteer in my English speaking classes.”
“When I make mistakes I am afraid that my friends will evaluate my speaking skills and they know that I am not good at English speaking skills.”
“Some of my classmates may not care about that but some of them pay attention to me and they realize my mistakes especially pronunciation mistakes if I make them and I don’t like that.”
“I am not confident to speak in front of my friend because I am afraid to making mistakes If I make mistakes, my friends will laugh at me.”
Teacher‟s related factors One of the reasons for provoking anxiety in speaking lessons reported by participants was teacher‟s personality and teacher‟s feedback in classes Four out of seven interviewees claims that the teachers who were strict with a lot of rigid rules aggravate their anxiety in speaking classes Besides, participants did not feel like teachers‟ negative evaluation especially when they made mistakes They believed that feedback and comments of teachers to some extent help them realize their mistakes and improve their pronunciation and speaking skills These comments and feedback, however, should be in a positive and encouraging ways
“I am nervous when I make mistakes in my classes and then the teacher gives feedbacks on it I think the comments of the teacher somehow help me to improve and correct it but the way teachers correct them should be encouraging.”
Interviewee 1 “That the teachers are so strict and they discourage me when I make mistakes also makes me nervous.”
Interviewee 3 “I also feel pressure if my teacher is so strict and correct my mistake in a critical way.”
Test anxiety More than a half of the interviewees (n = 4) were nervous about testing in speaking skills Test anxiety can be a fear of failing in speaking examination or a fear of giving bad results by teachers Four out of seven participants reported that they are afraid of failing in speaking test The other three participants reveal that they had no fear of speaking test but they did not like bad marks for speaking skills
“I think that can pass the speaking test but I don’t like bad results I don’t like it when the teacher gives me bad mark after my performance or presentation in my class.”
“I am afraid of failing in the test or the exam Bad marks prove that I am less competent than my friend and affect my college degree too.”
Interviewee 4 3.2.3 Suggested solutions to reduce anxiety in English speaking classes
In responses to the interview questions “What should the teacher do to reduce anxiety in English speaking classes of the students”, some suggested solutions of the students were synthesized as followed
Suitable speaking activities to students‟ proficiency Nearly a half of the students reported that suitable speaking activities can create a low anxiety speaking classes If the speaking tasks are suitable to students‟ ability, they can motivate students to do the task and they have the feelings of can do it In contrast, the challenging speaking tasks demotivate students and increase their anxiety
Indeed, the findings revealed that most of the students self-perceived their speaking proficiency as not good In this case, it is essential that the teacher be aware of the students‟ proficiency and design suitable activities to their level to motivate them
“I think the teacher should guide us practice speaking with the simple activities first and then more difficult ones.”
“the teacher should require students to do simple speaking tasks that are suitable to the level of the students”
Different activities in English speaking classes
Discussion
A main objective of the study was to measure the level of anxiety in speaking classes experienced by freshmen majoring in English at the teacher training college
Thus the first research question asked “What is the level of students‟ speaking anxiety?” The quantitative data from questionnaires found that students had moderate level of anxiety in speaking classes The results of the interviews indicated that all of the respondents (n=7) experienced different level of anxiety in English speaking classes Five out of seven experienced anxiety in different situations Meanwhile the other two only felt anxious in some specific situations Among the three types of anxiety, feedback anxiety, in other words fear of negative feedback by peers and teachers ranked the highest level and higher than communication anxiety and test anxiety These findings were supported by the findings from interviews that most of the students (five out of seven; 71, 42%) were anxious about being negatively evaluated by their classmates and the teachers The students also experienced from communication anxiety and test anxiety but they were lower than feedback anxiety
These findings were consistent with the findings of the previous studies (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Aida, 1994) However, these findings were somewhat unexpected as these students who are majored in English should have great love for English as well as speaking English rather than feel anxious for English speaking classes The findings may be due to the fact that these students are not good at English as the entrance examination results were not too high Another possibility was that these students mostly come from rural areas where teaching methods focus on grammar rather than speaking and listening and they were not have much time practice speaking skills at high school Therefore, speaking classes provokes their anxiety
Another objective of the study was to find out the level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and the level of students‟ self – perceived speaking proficiency
The quantitative data from questionnaires revealed that the first year students demonstrated a moderate level of motivation in learning English speaking skills This level of motivation in learning English for English majored students is a matter of concern to the researcher As mentioned earlier, research on the relationship between motivation and speaking proficiency showed that motivation was an affective factor and there was a correlation between motivation and speaking proficiency (Wilona et al ,2010) High motivation level help students get higher level of speaking proficiency These English major students had a moderate level of motivation in learning speaking might show less interest in engaging in speaking activities in class
As such, it would be difficult for them to improve speaking proficiency Regarding to students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency the findings from quantitative data showed a low level of the students The mean score of the students‟ students‟ self- perceived speaking proficiency was 2.36 and 2.44 As reference to CEFR, this level was equivalent to A2 or a little bit higher than A2 which was basic level of speaking
As expected, the level of students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency, to some extent, reflected the actual level of the freshmen as their college entrance marks were low
According to the Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg of the Prime Minister on the Approval of the
Project entitled “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System”, students majoring in English are required to reach B2 level for college education In addition, the CEFR guided learning hours estimates that it takes approximately 200 guided learning hours for a language learner to progress from one level of the CEFR to the next This means that these students need 400 guided hours to get standard proficiency when they graduate from the college However, the curriculum program of speaking skills at the college for the remaining time before graduating is 100 to 120 hours This demands a constant effort of the students to acquire speaking proficiency
An additional objective of the present study was to explore the relationship between English speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency;
English speaking anxiety and students‟ motivation in learning speaking
Relationship between English speaking anxiety and students’ self-perceived speaking proficiency
Pearson‟s product-moment correlations revealed the relationships between speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency Specifically, communication anxiety was found to have a negative significant correlation with students‟ self-perceived of spoken interaction The finding indicated that the students who have lower levels of anxiety when communicating with others may self-perceive themselves to be better at interaction in English speaking Speaking anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with students‟ self-perceived spoken interaction The finding revealed that the lower level of speaking anxiety students experienced, the higher spoken interaction ability they assessed themselves Indeed, when students have lower level of anxiety, they seem to be more confident and they think they have low fear of interacting in English speaking with other students in the speaking class
The finding also revealed a negative significant correlation between feedback anxiety and students‟ self-perceived of spoken production Learners who were in more fear of negative feedback by peers or teachers tend to self-perceive themselves with lower level of production in English speaking Speaking anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with students‟ self-perceived spoken production The finding indicated that the higher speaking anxiety the learners had, the lower spoken production they self-perceived
In general, the findings indicated that learners who had lower level of speaking anxiety may have high self-perceived speaking proficiency Low self-perceived speaking proficiency students can easily come up with speaking anxiety because they are not self-confident to complete the learning task The finding lends support to the previous studies about relationship between self-perceived proficiency and foreign language anxiety (MacIntyre et al., 1997, MacIntyre et al., 2002; Kitano, 2001;
Relationship between English speaking anxiety and students’ motivation in learning speaking
While exploring the relationship between three types of anxiety and motivation, it was found that feedback anxiety was significantly and negatively correlated with motivation The finding revealed that the more the learners were in fear of negative feedback, the lower motivation in learning speaking the learners had Total anxiety or speaking anxiety was found to have a negative significant correlation with motivation
The finding implies that students with lower levels of speaking anxiety tend to have stronger motivation for learning English speaking The findings support a number of studies about the relationship between anxiety and motivation, for example, those by Gardner et al, (1992), Brown, Robson, and Rosenkjar (2001), Aida (1994) and Liu
(2012) In these studies learners‟ motivation and anxiety were negatively correlated and when students are less motivated to learn English they are more likely to be anxious during the learning process
The final objective of the present study was to identify the ways that may alleviate the level of anxiety in speaking classes of the students The final research questions asked: “In what ways can the teachers help reduce the level of anxiety in
English speaking classes?” The five solutions has been suggested to reduce the level of students‟ speaking anxiety
Employ a variety of activities in English speaking classes
One strategy that can help students develop more confidence in English speaking classes is the use of different activities in speaking lessons The teacher should regularly employ various communicative activities such as role-plays, group discussions or games to develop fluency and confidence According to Ansari (2015) these kinds of activities were useful because students are given a ''new persona with pseudo names'' (p.43), which gives them a chance of getting a new identity and protecting one's image Therefore, the fear of negative evaluation is reduced by creating new and interesting activities in the language class, which in turn improves the learner‟s speaking abilities and language proficiency as well Indeed, apart from having fun and enjoying relaxed atmosphere students are learning at the same time as suggested by respondents in the interviews “I think the teachers should plan a lesson with a lot of activities to make the atmosphere of the class more comfortable.”
Design speaking activities suitable to students’ proficiency
Designing speaking activities suitable to students‟ proficiency can be regarded as an effective way to alleviate anxiety in speaking classes of the students Actually, anxiety can be either facilitating or debilitating Facilitating anxiety motivates the learner On the other hand, debilitating anxiety motivates the learner to assume an avoidance attitude and therefore tends to escape from the new learning task (Scovel,
1978) The factor of task difficulty affects the learner to develop a facilitating or a debilitating anxiety MacIntyre (1995) suggests only when "a given task is relatively simple," foreign language anxiety could be facilitating In such a situation, anxiety may improve performance through increased effort But once the task is too difficult, anxiety will impair performance Therefore, anxiety could either benefit or impair the language learning and performance, and the determinant is task difficulty As suggested by some participants “I think the teacher should guide us practice speaking with the simple activities first and then
Give positive feedback to the students
Summary of the key findings
The first RQ was answered by using both quantitative and qualitative data The findings of the quantitative data indicated that the English majored freshmen at the teacher training college had a moderate anxiety in English speaking classes The qualitative data showed that all of the participants experienced anxiety in English speaking classes The findings from quantitative and qualitative data which indicated the highest level of feedback anxiety among the three types of anxiety revealed that freshmen were anxious about negative feedback by teachers and peers rather than test anxiety and communicative anxiety
As for the second RQ, quantitative data indicated a moderate level of students‟ motivation in learning speaking and a low level of students‟ self – perceived speaking proficiency The findings revealed that the freshmen majoring in English at the teacher training college had neither low nor high motivation in learning speaking skills and self-perceived themselves as a A2 or a little bit higher than A2 as reference to CEFR
For the third RQ, the study found that the lower levels of anxiety in real communication with others were associated with higher levels of self-perceived interaction in English speaking Also, the lower levels of anxiety in negative feedback by peers or teachers were associated with higher level of self-perceived production in English speaking In general, the findings indicated that learners who have lower level of speaking anxiety tend to have high self-perceived speaking proficiency Regarding the relationship between speaking anxiety and motivation in learning speaking, the findings showed that the higher levels of feedback anxiety were associated with lower levels of motivation in learning speaking and the lower levels of speaking anxiety were associated with the higher levels of motivation in learning English speaking
RQ four was answered by the data collected through interviews The analyses of data revealed six sources of anxiety in speaking classes experienced by first year students including self – perceived speaking competence, communication anxiety, linguistics difficulties, fear of negative evaluations of classmates, teacher‟s related factors and test anxiety The five solutions were suggested to alleviate students‟ anxiety in speaking classes which are giving positive feedback to the students, creating positive learning atmosphere, employing a variety of activities in English speaking classes, providing students with input languages and designing speaking activities suitable to students‟ proficiency.
Implications
Speaking anxiety has a remarkable impact on the improvement of students‟ speaking skills Firstly, the teacher should be aware of the level of students‟ anxiety in speaking classes and help students to overcome the anxiety in speaking It is suggested that teachers pay attention to the factors causing anxiety in order to have the suitable solutions to alleviate anxiety of the students Secondly, the study results revealed that speaking anxiety was negatively correlated with motivation in learning speaking Low anxiety and high motivation are the two factors that related to language acquisition In order to reduce students‟ anxiety and increase their learning motivation it is essential that the teacher should create a low-anxiety classroom atmosphere in speaking classes
If the students learn in the environment without pressure and stress, they may generate positive motivation and low anxiety in the classes Thirdly, the study results also indicated a negative correlation between speaking anxiety and students‟ self-perceived speaking proficiency Teachers should build students‟ confidence through encouragement and increase motivation for students to speak up confidently and fluently in English speaking class This requires teachers to be more creative and flexible in teaching that could encourage to the students to be able to speak.
Limitations of the study
Beside the objectives were achieved, the present study exists the drawback The limitation is that only first year students participated in data gathering procedure of the study For the last RQ which aimed at finding out some ways to reduce the level of students‟ anxiety in speaking classes, the solutions were suggested from students‟ perspective The solutions for reducing speaking anxiety would be more diversified if the study investigated from teachers‟ perspective to have opinions from both sides.
Suggestions for further study
The present study only focused on anxiety experienced by first year students majoring in English at a teacher training college While anxiety can arouse in different skills in language learning and teaching, the research has no chance to deal with other skills There are some suggestions for further research First, future research may extend this research by investigating the anxiety for students who are non-majored in English at the teacher training college Second, future research may investigate students‟ anxiety in listening, reading or writing for student at the teacher training college
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Appendix A: Questionnaire Questionnaire in English
This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into “Anxiety in English speaking classes experienced by English majored freshmen at a teacher training college in Viet Nam” Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated Please answer ALL the questions as truly as you can Your responses are not assessed or marked and they are used confidentially for the research purpose only, no names of individuals or the university will be used in reporting the results of this questionnaire Thank you for your cooperation
Part 1: Personal information Please read the following questions and answer them by either ticking the appropriate box or writing the answer in the provided space:
Please write down your age here:………
3 How long have you been learning English?
4 How often do you practice speaking English every week at home?
5 What mark did you score in your speaking test last semester?
Please write down your mark here:………
Part 2: Anxiety in English speaking class Please read each item carefully and circle the appropriate number to show the degree to which you agree or disagree with each statement
1 I never feel quite sure of myself when I am speaking in my English speaking class
2 I don't worry about making mistakes in
3 I tremble when I know that I'm going to be called on in English speaking class
4 It frightens me when I don't understand what the teacher is saying in English 1 2 3 4 5
5 It wouldn't bother me at all to take more English speaking classes 1 2 3 4 5
6 During English speaking class, I find myself thinking about things that have nothing to do with the course
7 I keep thinking that the other students are better at English speaking than I am
8 I am usually at ease during tests in my
9 I start to panic when I have to speak without preparation in English speaking class
10 I worry about the consequences of failing my English speaking class 1 2 3 4 5
11 I don't understand why some people get so upset over English speaking classes
12 In English speaking class, I can get so nervous I forget things I know 1 2 3 4 5
13 It embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my English speaking class 1 2 3 4 5
14 I would not be nervous speaking
15 I get upset when I don't understand what the teacher is correcting 1 2 3 4 5
16 Even if I am well prepared for English speaking class, I feel anxious about it 1 2 3 4 5
17 I often feel like not going to my
18 I feel confident when I speak in
19 I am afraid that my English teacher is ready to correct every mistake I make 1 2 3 4 5
20 I can feel my heart pounding when I'm going to be called on in English speaking class
21 The more I study for English test, the more con‐ fused I get 1 2 3 4 5
22 I don't feel pressure to prepare very well for English speaking class 1 2 3 4 5
23 I always feel that the other students speak English better than I do 1 2 3 4 5
24 I feel very self‐conscious about speaking English in front of other 1 2 3 4 5 students
25 English speaking class moves so quickly I worry about getting left behind
26 I feel more tense and nervous in my English speaking class than in my other classes
27 I get nervous and confused when I am speaking in my English speaking class 1 2 3 4 5
28 When I'm on my way to English speaking class, I feel very sure and relaxed
29 I get nervous when I don't understand every word the English teacher says 1 2 3 4 5
30 I feel overwhelmed by the number of rules you have to learn to speak English
31 I am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when I speak English 1 2 3 4 5
32 I would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of English 1 2 3 4 5
33 I get nervous when the English teacher asks questions which I haven't prepared in advance
Part 3: Motivation in learning speaking The following statements are about the motivation of learning speaking Please read each item carefully and circle the appropriate number to show the degree to which you agree or disagree with each statement
1 Outside of class, I almost never think about what I‟m learning in English language speaking class
2 If possible, I would like to take a more advanced English language speaking course
3 Speaking realistically, I would say that
I don‟t try very hard to learn English language speaking skills
4 I want to be able to use English in a wide variety of situations 1 2 3 4 5
5 I don ‟t really have a great desire to learn a lot of English language speaking skills
6 Learning English language speaking well is not really a high priority for me at this point
7 I don t really feel that learning English language speaking skills is valuable to me
Part 4: Self-perceived speaking proficiency This self-assessment grid illustrates the levels of speaking proficiency described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) Circle the appropriate number which describes the level of your English speaking from the level A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, or C2
I can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I'm trying to say I can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics
I can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities I can handle very short social exchanges, even though I can't usually understand enough to keep the conversation going myself
I can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken I can enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life (e.g family, hobbies, work, travel and current events)
I can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible I can take an active part in discussion in familiar contexts, accounting for and sustaining my views
I can express myself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions I can use language flexibly and effectively for social and professional purposes I can formulate ideas and opinions with precision and relate my contribution skillfully to those of other speakers
I can take part effortlessly in any conversation or discussion and have a good familiarity with idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms I can express myself fluently and convey finer shades of meaning precisely If I do have a problem I can backtrack and restructure around the difficulty so smoothly that other people are hardly aware of it
I can use simple phrases and sentences to describe where I live and people I know
I can use a series of phrases and sentences to describe in simple terms my family and other people, living conditions, my educational background and my present or most recent job
I can connect phrases in a simple way in order to describe experiences and events, my dreams, hopes and ambitions I can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans I can narrate a story or relate the plot of a book or film and describe my reactions
