SPEAKING ANXIETY OF FRESHMEN AND SENIOR ELT PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS

Rapid developments in technology have made people closer to each other all around the globe. This closeness has promoted English as a common language and created a need for adaptation to the requirements of the new world. However, affective factors, along with many others, seem to hinder the efforts to learn and speak a new language. Anxiety, as one of these affective factors, has an important role in the language learning process. Most of the research on language learning anxiety investigated language learners; however, prospective teachers’ speaking anxiety is rarely studied. Thus the study aims to investigate the speaking anxiety levels of ELT prospective teachers in a state university in Turkey. Freshmen and senior prospective teachers were the participants of the study. Designed as a mixed method research, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The quantitative data was collected via a questionnaire from 117 participants, 10 of which are interviewed afterwards. Dual and multiple comparisons were made to analyse the numerical data. As the data were not normally distributed nonparametric tests were employed. The qualitative data was analysed via content analysis. The results showed that prospective ELT teachers had a moderate level of speaking anxiety, freshmen having higher level of anxiety. There were significant differences between female and male prospective teachers as well as the type of high schools prospective teachers graduated from. Proficiency levels had a significant effect on the level of speaking anxiety. The interview results claimed the causes of speaking anxiety from the perspective of prospective teachers