ESL public speaking anxiety: an exploration of self-regulatory strategies used by Malaysian undergraduates

• Main Author: Tee, Xue Ting
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4387/1/1906207_DIS.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4387/
• Institution: Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

On 20 September 2020, it was reported that approximately 75,000 new graduates are expected to face difficulties in finding jobs considering that Malaysian graduates are incompetent at proper presentation skills, in addition to their poor command of the English language due to anxiety. This situation has gained immediate attention in researching on self-regulatory strategies to cope with the anxiety. Therefore, this study utilised the Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) to measure the anxiety levels faced by undergraduates in the studied university, which correlated the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia English results with the PSCAS scores and investigated different self-regulatory strategies used through group interviews. Although 39 of the undergraduates experienced low public speaking anxiety (PSA) levels, the Spearman’s correlation test proved that fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety and communication apprehension were reasons behind those with a high level of PSA. A number of strategies were also reported and the most prevalent reported strategy was the affective strategy. When they used affective strategies such as listening to music and taking deep breathes to focus on the presentation, it leads to sharpening of presentation skills and resolves one of the major reasons that contribute to unemployment. Further studies at different public and private universities with larger samples are recommended to deepen the understanding of PSA and uncover the use of selfregulatory strategies amongst the undergraduates across different courses.