Speaking Anxiety Among ESL Learners: A Comparative Study Between Electrical Engineering and Digital Technology Students
For ESL students, speaking is the most demanding skill. Individuals may experience communication challenges, with anxiety being a prominent concern. Currently, the curriculum of Malaysian polytechnics places a strong emphasis on developing communicative skills among their students. However, this matter still remains a cause for concern. In addition, the three-year Electrical Engineering and Digital Technology programmes have different mandatory English courses. Digital Technology students are required to take only one English course, whereas Electrical Engineering students must complete three English courses. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate any significant difference in the causes of speaking anxiety, particularly fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension, between students from the Electrical Engineering and Digital Technology programmes since they have dissimilar durations of exposure to formal English education during diploma years. In this study, 50 students responded to 18 items of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). Descriptive analysis, T-test and Pearson Correlation were utilised to analyse the data collected through the questionnaire. The results revealed that there is no significant difference in fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension, as well as the level of speaking anxiety, between the Electrical Engineering and Digital Technology students, despite their different durations of exposure to formal English education. The study also found a strong connection between fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension. Generally, it can be inferred that individuals who have a fear of negative evaluation may also experience communication apprehension, and this is not necessarily due to a lack of exposure to the target language. The results of this study may assist learners and educators, particularly in polytechnics, in finding alternative techniques to confront this speaking anxiety issue.