Speaking Anxiety, Grammar Skills, and Speaking Ability of

Senior High School Students

ELLEN P. FUNDAL

Chapter 1

Introduction to the Study

This chapter is divided into five parts namely: (1)

Background of the Study and Theoretical Framework, (2)

Statement of the Problem and the Hypothesis, (3)

Significance of the Study, (4) Definition of Terms, and, (5)

Delimitation of the Study.

Part One, Background and Theoretical Framework of the

Study, presents an introduction or overview of the present

study, explains the rationale of the study, and discusses

the reason for the need to conduct the study, and explains

the theories formerly conducted by scholars upon which the

research study is anchored.

Part Two, Statement of the Problem and the Hypothesis,

states the main purpose for conducting the study and

enumerates the specific questions which the study sought to

answer. It also states the hypotheses to be tested in the

study.
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Part Three, Significance of the Study, states the

benefits that persons, groups, or organizations may derive

from the findings of the study.

Part Four, Definition of Terms, provides conceptual and

operational definitions of technical terms for the purpose

of clarity and understanding.

Part Five, Delimitation of the Study, specifies the

coverage of the investigation in terms of purpose,

variables, subjects, research design and methodologies,

research instrument used, and the statistical tools and

analytical scheme.

Background and Theoretical Framework of the Study

Language plays an important role in human life. One

tries to acquire, learn and use language as a means of

communication at the same time as social symbol. By using

language, a person could make statements, convey facts,

explain or report something, and keep social relations. By

means of language, people can express their ideas, feelings,

information etc. through communication.

The researcher, being an English teacher observed

that some students nowadays find difficulties in

expressing using the English language. They tended to keep

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silent and many of them avoid responding questions in

front of the class. When I asked questions or elicit

information from the students most of the students tend to

use vernacular language or their mother language. Then

when I asked students why they can’t answer in English

they say that speaking in front of many people is one of the

most difficult aspects for them. The anxiety they feel in

public speaking, their apprehensions that they might get

mistake in their grammar becomes a great factor that they

could not express in English language.

English language teachers in San Nicolas National

High School also complain students’ insufficient

participation in speaking English. Because, the students

do not involve themselves in the speaking activities like:

Pair and group discussion, role playing, oral

presentation, improvisations and speaking tasks involving

speaking. The reason that I have observed why speaking is

difficult aspect for students to master is because they do

not having enough exposure to English or their

environmental factor, infrequent English speaking practice

in daily life, feeling shy, lazy to learn the English

language and insufficient practice of speaking in English

are the my observations as a teacher.

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Speaking anxiety has to do with fear, which in most

cases has developed from bad prior experiences. It is

frequently suggested that children who have not been

encouraged to speak from an early stage also create a weaker

communicative behavior pattern. Becoming silent at an early

stage also contributes to limited opportunities to practice

oral skills. Parents’ behavior and views on outspokenness

have therefore a great impact on children’s speaking

development. When children that are not used to speaking out

are confronted with schools’ challenging requirements in

oral proficiency, their inhibition often results in silence

and withdrawnness (Basic, 2011).

Looking at this importance in this global era, speaking

skill becomes one of the most important skills to be

developed and enhanced as means of effective communication

worldwide. In our country, English plays an important role

in international communication and in the development of

Education, Economic, Science, and Technology.

(Meilyaningsih, 2015).

At schools students have to learn four skills of

English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, but out

of the four skills, speaking seems intuitively the most

important. Speaking is a process to convey and sharing ideas

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and feelings orally. Speaking involved some skills such as

accuracy, appropriateness, fluency and vocabulary building.

All of those elements need to be mastered by the students.

In teaching and learning process, the teachers give less

attention to speaking. Learning English does not mean just

learning about the structure and vocabulary, but also

learning how to speak the language for communication to one

another. Students get involved in communication because they

have ideas and feeling they want to share. This sharing

cannot be done in one way, but there must be senders and

receivers to build a conversation. On the other hand, having

wide speaking students can communicate effectively even

though they may be weak at grammar and vocabulary

(Snyder,2011).

English language is governed by rules of grammar and

is a tool for verbal communication. How words are arranged

systematically in a sentence contributes to understanding

and interaction. Grammar contains a lot of rules of forming

words and sentences starting from simple rules up to complex

rules. It is supported by Tuan and Doan (2010) who define

grammar as the language rules consisting of how to construct

and form the words. Meanwhile, Alduais (2013) presents the

definitions of grammar as a set of formal patterns in which

the words are arranged in order to convey larger meanings, a

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branch of linguistic science concerned with the description

analysis and formulization of formal language patterns,

etiquette grammar. Thus, knowledge of English grammar is

very important in speaking

Learning English language involves developing both the

ability to use language effectively for a range of purposes

and the ability to talk about the language being used.

Ramirez (2010) explains that language is an integral part of

learning, and oral language has a key role in classroom

teaching and learning. ‘It helps to encourage creativity,

understanding, and imagination; it is a means of solving

problems, speculating, sharing ideas and making decisions;

language builds friendships and enhances social

interaction. Faberova (2014) added that gaining any skills,

not only language ones, bring along practice. No matter how

much talented a person is, without regular, frequent and

repetitive practice he will not go far. Learning speaking is

not an exception.

This study was anchored on the Theory of Foreign

Language Anxiety of Elaine K. Horwitz; Michael B. Horwitz

and Joann Cope (1986). These theorists defined foreign

language anxiety or FLA as “a distinct complex construct of

self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors related

to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness

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of language learning process”. They consider FLA (Foreign

Language Anxiety) as a unique type of anxiety specific to

foreign language learning.

Thus, this study is based on the aforementioned

premises. It is with these considerations that the

researcher draws inspiration to investigate on matters

regarding speaking anxiety, grammar skills and speaking

ability of Senior High School students of San Nicolas

National High School.

Figure 1 below shows the conceptual framework of the

study where the independent variables are speaking anxiety

and grammar skills and the dependent variable is their

speaking ability.

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

Speaking Anxiety

Speaking Ability

Grammar Skills

Figure 1. A schematic diagram showing the speaking ability

as influenced by speaking anxiety and grammar skills.

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Statement of the Problem and the Hypothesis

Generally, this study aims to determine the

relationship of speaking anxiety, grammar skills and

speaking ability of Senior High School Students of San

Nicolas National High School. For the school year 2018-

2019.

This study seeks answers to the following questions:

1. What is the level of speaking anxiety of senior high

school students?

2. What is the level of grammar skills of senior high

school students?

3. What is the level of speaking ability of senior high

school students?

4. Is there a significant difference in speaking

ability among the levels of speaking anxiety of senior high

school students?

5. Is there a significant difference in speaking

ability among the levels of grammar skills of senior high

school students?

6. Are there significant relationship among speaking

anxiety, grammar skills and speaking ability of senior high

school students?
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In view of the preceding problems, the null hypotheses

were formulated:

1. There is no significant difference in the senior

high school students’ level of speaking ability when they

are grouped according to speaking anxiety and grammar

skills.

2. There is no significant relationship among the

levels of speaking anxiety, grammar skills and speaking

ability of senior high school students.

Significance of the Study

The findings of the study will be of big help to the

students, teachers, school administrators, parents and

future researchers.

Students. The result of this research will be of great

help to students in realizing and developing means and ways

to improve their speaking ability in relation to their

speaking anxiety and grammar skills. This will provide them

opportunities to enhance their performance in the English

and help learners to alleviate their speaking anxiety by

making friendship with classmates, sharing the feeling of

anxiety and practicing the English language. A learner

should experience an exposure to practice speaking

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opportunities with a relaxing start. As much as possible,

group presentations with simple and clear activities must

precede individual presentations as to uncertainty can lead

to anxiety. Also, the students should be educated as to how

they can cope with speaking anxiety for the development of

their ability in speaking.

English Teachers. The study will raise awareness to the

teachers to create a friendly, supportive and understanding

learning environment for the learners. The teachers must

help the learners feel comfortable and be at ease to reduce

anxiety and facilitate language learning. Teachers can also

help learners with their friendly, facilitative and positive

attitude and use different activities like warm up, group/

pair works in class to alleviate learners’ English speaking

anxiety

Parents. Results of this study will enable the parents

to guide their children especially those who need enrichment

in English subject especially on grammar. Likewise this

study will raise their awareness in the speaking ability of

their children that will lead them to encourage and do

regular monitoring on their children’s performance and

progress at school especially in their English subjects.

This will also brought attention to them to focus to their

children and develop study time at home. In same way,

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parents may do their part and take appropriate actions to

help their children improve their grammar skills in relation

to their speaking ability which are vital aspects for the

improvement of their performance in English and other

subjects.

Department of Education. Curriculum makers could impose

approach for good methods in lessening the anxiety, by

letting teachers attending language teaching conferences and

workshops which suggest practices to use in the foreign

language class. Proper teaching methodologies use by the

teachers should be checked regularly if it has been

elaborated with the aim of alleviating students’ fear and

grammar skills in developing communicative competence.

Future Researchers. This study will also be very

beneficial on the part of the future researchers as it will

serve as their guide and reference. The result of the study

may arouse interest on other researchers to conduct same or

related studies which will either confirm or contradict the

result from this study. This study may serve as a

springboard for the conduct of related interesting studies

worth investigating for beneficial results. Those who are

interested in the affective domain of second language

learning to pursue more comprehensive evaluation of speech

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anxiety, grammar skills , speaking ability and other skills

in english.

Definition of Terms

For purposes of clarity and precision, important terms

which are used in this study are defined conceptually and

operationally.

Speaking anxiety- refers to apprehension experienced

when a situation requires the use of a second or foreign

language in communication with which the individual is not

fully proficient (Ballesteros, 2015 ).

In this study “speaking anxiety” referred to how the

respondents will rate themselves on the degree of their

anxiety in expressing the English language as measured by

the modified Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale

(FLCAS) developed by Elaine K. Horwitz (1986). This

consisted of 30-items, each of which has five choices.

Respondents were asked to rate strongly agree, agree,

uncertain, disagree or strongly disagree in response to each

item. Ratings were added and the total score would indicate

the degree to which they were affected by anxiety in

speaking and was classified using a scale: 4.21-5.00, very

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high anxiety; 3.41-4.20, high anxiety; 2.61-3.40, moderate

anxiety; 1.81-2.60, low anxiety; 1.00-1.80,very low anxiety.

Grammar skills-refer to the competence in terms of

application of the system of rules that specifies the order

in which words can be used in sentences and how ord order is

used to convey meaning (Rao, 2008 in Manejo, 2016)

In this study, “grammar skills” referred to the skills

of the senior high school students to conform to the rules

by which words are put obtained from the Modified Grammar

Skills Test developed by Luda (2015)It consisted of 45 item

test that is divided into 5 parts namely; subject-verb

agreement, articles, word choice, pronouns and verb tenses.

The respondents’ grammar skills was interpreted using the

scale: 37.00 - 45.00, advanced; 28.00 - 36.00, proficient;

19.00 - 27.00, approaching proficiency; 10.00 - 18.00,

developing and 0.00 - 9.00, beginning.

Speaking ability- refers to the student’s ability to

demonstrate oral English communication skills.(Ballesteros,

2015).

In this study, ”speaking ability” referred to the

levels of oral English proficiency of senior high school

students obtain from the speaking test developed by

Ballesteros,(2015). It consisted of three parts. Part 1 has

three questions about the participant’s family. Part 2 has a

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task card with prompt which aided the participant to talk

about their unforgettable family occasion. Part 3 has two

questions about abstract issues related to family peaking

ability was interpreted using the scale: 49.0-60.00, very

high; 37.00-48.00, high; 25.00-36.00, average; 13.00-24.00,

low and 0.00-12.00, very low.

Delimitation of the Study

The survey-correlational study was be used to determine

the speaking anxiety, grammar skills and speaking ability of

senior high school students of San Nicolas National High

School for the school year 2018-2019

It involved randomly selected grade 11 and grade 12

students from a total of 109 senior high school students

(Grade 11 and Grade 12) from a population of 150 students.

Data were gathered using the modified survey

questionnaire, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale

(FLCAS) Horwitz,1989 in Ballesteros,2015), modified Grammar

Skills Test Luda (2015) and speaking ability test

Ballesteros (2015).
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The independent variables of the study were the

students’ speaking anxiety and grammar skills and the

dependent variable is their speaking ability.

Statistical tools that were employed in the treatment

of the data are the means, and standard deviation for

descriptive statistical analysis; ANOVA and Pearson’s r were

utilized for the inferential statistical analysis.

The level of significance was set at .05 alpha for two-

tailed test. Statistical computations were availed of via

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS and Microsoft

Excel Software.