AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING ENGLISH (A Study at 11th Grade Social Science Students of SMAN 4 Kota Bengkulu)

This research aims at determining the level and factors causing student anxiety in
speaking English faced by 11th grade students majoring in Social Sciences for the
2022/2023 academic year. This research is quantitative descriptive. The sample for
this research was 60 students from 11th grade majoring in Social Sciences, from
class Social Science 1 to Social Science 5. Data collection was carried out by using
a questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 32 items representing 3 categories of
student anxiety adapted from Horwitz et. al (1986). The questionnaire has been
validated using expert judgment. The reliability of this instrument was obtained
using the Cronbach's Alpha formula in Microsoft Excel software. This research
used simple statistics (percentage and weighted average) to analyze the data. The
results of the study showed that the majority of students (49 out of 60) were at a
moderate level of anxiety, meaning that the overall level of anxiety for 11th grade
students majoring in Social Sciences was moderate anxiety in speaking English.
There are three factors that cause student anxiety in learning to speak English in
11th grade students majoring in Social Sciences; Test Anxiety, Communication
Apprehension, Fear of Negative Evaluation. The majority factor that causes student
anxiety in learning to speak English in 11th grade students majoring in Social
Sciences mostly comes from the Test Anxiety.
Keywords: Anxiety, Anxiety level, Anxiety factors.