The Effect of Participation Instruction on ESL Students’ Speaking Skills and Language Anxiety

• Main Authors: Hamzah, Mohd Hilmi, Asokan, Thivya
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: PE English
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/24260/1/ICE-HOTS%202016%20715%20727.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/24260/

This study aims to investigate the extent to which Participation Instruction could help increase students’ classroom participation in speaking activities.It also seeks to examine the degree to which such an instruction could overcome students’ language anxiety in the context of learning English as a second language (ESL). Using an experimental design, two groups of secondary school students (experimental and control groups) were involved in the study.There were 15 students in each group. Participation Instruction served as a treatment for the experimental group in which three activities were designed to encourage oral participation from the students.The students’ participation was observed and assessed using a likert-scale classroom participation checklist.In order to examine the effect of language anxiety on classroom participation, the students in each group answered the questionnaires before and after the treatment. The findings from the classroom observations show that, for the experimental group, Participation Instruction had some effects on the students’ classroom participation. In terms of language anxiety, the results from the questionnaires indicate that this factor influenced the students’ participation in the classroom and Participation Instruction helped them overcome their anxieties. This study highlights the importance of Participation Instruction in language teaching in which English teachers are recommended to incorporate this teaching methodology in their English language lessons.