ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKING ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS IN TAIWAN

This study was aimed to exploring the differences between genders as well as the proficiency differences of students who experienced English speaking anxiety at a university of technology in Taiwan. The participants were 679 randomly selected students at a university of technology in Taiwan. An English speaking anxiety questionnaire was adopted for data collection. The results have shown that students attributed the cause of anxiety to lack of practice, lack of confidence, a fear of making mistakes, and lower English speaking proficiency The results showed there was no significant difference between male and female students in terms of their English speaking anxieties in this study. On the contrary, the results showed there was a significant difference between two different proficiency groups in terms of their English speaking anxieties. On the average, lower level speaking proficiency group students had higher English speaking anxieties than higher level speaking proficiency group students.