THE STUDENTS’ ANXIETY TO SPEAK ENGLISH IN SPEAKING CLASS: A CASE STUDY OF THE SECOND SEMESTER OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS OF MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PURWOREJO IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013

Abstract

The aims of this research are to find out the level of the students’ anxiety, to describe the causes of students’ anxiety and to describe the students’ anticipation reducing their anxiety to speak English at the second semester of English Department students of Muhammadiyah University of Purworejo in Academic Year 2012/2013. Here, the researcher used qualitative analysis. The instrument that is used here is questionnaire and interview. Most of students belong to the category of anxiety level of high. The frequency of the students who belongs to this category was 17 students. The percentage of this category was 56.62%. The frequency of the category of anxiety level of medium was 9 students. The percentage of this category is 31.02%. The frequency of the category of anxiety level of low is 3 students. The percentage of this category is 10.34%. Most of students said that the possible cause of their anxiety is because they do not have enough opportunities to speak English, and are prevented from practicing by affective factors, such as fear of making errors and poor evaluation, afraid of being laughed at or losing face, feeling hesitant, and not confident. There are six strategies to anticipate students’ anxiety in speaking class, namely: (1) organizing variety of communicative activities, (2) fluency prior to accuracy, (3) prompt encouragement/motivation, (4) creating good learning atmosphere, (5) designing interesting interactive teaching materials/tasks, and (6) feedback from students.

Key Words: Students’ Anxiety, Speaking Class, Speaking English.