All eyes on me?: University student’s speaking anxiety in relation to gender

A cardinal skill in acquiring a second language is speaking. Oral communication skill is perceived to be the most daunting especially for students of low proficiency since assessments and practices require them to speak in public or in front of peers. The purpose of conducting this study was to assess speaking anxiety in English oral presentations among UiTM diploma students in correlation to speaking anxiety levels and gender. A set of questionnaires consisting of 33 items adapted from Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was disseminated to 257 students and analysed using statistical analysis (SPSS). The result depicted that male students have higher speaking anxiety across three domains (communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety) compared to their female counterparts. However, further analysis using the independent sample t-test revealed that there was no significant difference between genders. Therefore, the results of this study have implications for ESL educators and could offer suggestions in adopting effective educational practices to help mitigate speaking anxiety among students and improve students’ learning, proficiency and confidence in speaking English.