Students’ Gender, Anxiety, and Speaking Performance in The Indonesian EFL Context

Abstract

Students’ Gender, Anxiety, and Speaking Performance in the Indonesian EFL Context. This study aimed at revealing the relationship between gender, anxiety, and speaking performance in the Indonesian EFL context. The data for this correlational study were collected through a modified Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaire consisting of 43 six-Likert-scale items and an informal teachermade oral test, which were administered to 40 freshmen, 20 males and 20 females, of English Department. The result indicated that students experienced a moderate level of anxiety, which negatively correlated to their speaking performance. However, the correlation was more significant in the male group, indicating the debilitative impact of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) to speaking performance. FLA also contributed quite significantly to the speaking performance of the male group than the female one. When included in the computation process, gender was found to not significantly correlate with students’ FLA and speaking performance; even though there was a tendency that females were more anxious, their overall speaking performance was better.