Investigating the impacts of oral communication anxiety among EFL learners Case study: first year English learners at Mohamed el Bachir El Ibrahimi University

Abstract

Acquiring the skill of communicating orally in the target language is a priority that should be taken into consideration. Most learners face obstacles that prevent them from achieving the desired objectives. Therefore, reaching a high level of fluency is not always accomplished. One of the impediments is anxiety, which serves as a hindrance to EFL learners that prevents them from being fluent communicators. As a consequence, this obstacle inhibits learners from sharing their ideas, opinions and potentials when communicating and interacting with others. Accordingly, the current study tries to investigate deeply what makes learners anxiety appears in speaking the target language, and how it affects their oral communication performance. This research includes possible reasons as well as some recommendations and solutions in order to avoid this issue. For data collection, a mixed method research was employed; a primary data (a questionnaire) and secondary data (an interview).The volunteers who participated were 169 learners as a sample to answer the question (136 females and 33 males), and a random 12 participants were interviewed (7 females and 5 males). The data collection procedure was designated for first year English language learners of Mohammad El Bachir Ibrahimi University of Bordj Bou Arreridj