ABSTRACT

USING WHATSAPP TO MINIMIZE SPEAKING ANXIETY

By
FAUZIA AT TIN
A1D2 13 122

Speaking anxiety is a huge obstacle that students face in learning foreign language currently. Some studies have measured and categorized students’ foreign language anxiety, but little research has explored the way to reduce foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA). This study examined the effect of using WhatsApp activities in undergraduate level EFL speaking classes on students’ speaking anxiety when speaking in English. It used quasi experimental design which involved two classes; experimental and control class. 27 undergraduate students carried out the tasks on WhatsApp in EFL speaking as experimental group and 26 undergraduate students carried out the tasks without using WhatsApp in EFL speaking as control group for three weeks. The students were selected by using cluster random sampling technique. Further, the FLSAS was distributed at the beginning and at the end of the study. Results showed that WhatsApp experiences significantly impacted the students’ speaking anxiety by lowering EFL speaking anxiety. It is proven by descriptive analysis in which students’ mean score of experimental class was 72.15 in pretest and 65.48 in posttest, meanwhile students’ mean score of control class in pre-test was 71.65 and students’ score of control class in posttest was 70.96. Furthermore, the result of hypothesis testing showed that the value of Sig (2-tailed) was 0.000 which smaller than 0.05, means that H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted. Therefore, it can be inferred that there is a significant effect of using WhatsApp to lower speaking anxiety.


Key words: EFL Speaking Anxiety, Mobile Assisted Language Learning, WhatsApp