Page 84 - RASAS 2025

10 Ruhuna Arts Student’s Annual Sessions (RASAS) -2025
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Unmasking Language Anxiety in Speaking Fluency: A Study of Grade 11 ESL
Learners at R/Emb/Omalpe Vidyalaya, Kolonna

R.D. Rasanjalee
Department of English and Linguistics, University of Ruhuna
rdrasanjalee@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

English plays a crucial role in the Sri Lankan education system, career advancement, and communication. As

the link language in Sri Lanka, English is given importance in school education, with students regularly
assesssed through term tests and national examinations. Despite years of learning English, many learners in
Sri Lanka continue to struggle with oral proficiency. According to Krashen’s Affective Filter Hypothesis, one

significant factor that contributes to this struggle is language anxiety. Although language anxiety has been
widely researched, limited attention has been given to its impact on the speaking skills of secondary-level
learners in rural Sri Lankan classrooms. This study investigated the influence of language anxiety on the

English-speaking skills of Grade 11 ESL learners at R/Emb/Omalpe Vidyalaya, Kolonna. The research aimed
to examine the extent to which language anxiety affects the speaking skills of Grade 11 ESL learners, to assess
whether the correlation is strong, moderate, or weak, and examine the extent to which accuracy, confidence,

and fluency relate to language anxiety. A quantitative approach was employed, involving 30 Grade 11 students
from R/Emb/Omalpe Vidyalaya, Kolonna. The quantitative data collection included an adapted version of the

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and a teacher-administered speaking test. Quantitative
data from the FLCAS and speaking test scores were analysed using descriptive statistics. Pearson’s correlation
was used to explore the relationship between language anxiety and speaking performance. The results revealed

a strong negative correlation of -0.829 between language anxiety and speaking performance. Among the three
components of speaking, fluency was the most negatively affected by anxiety, with a strong negative

correlation of -0.658. Confidence and accuracy demonstrated moderate negative correlations of -0.302 and -
0.315, respectively. These findings indicated that when language anxiety increases, speaking performance
decreases, with fluency being mostly impacted. It is recommended that teachers should prioritise fluency-

building activities such as short speeches and storytelling without much focus on accuracy. Further research
on anxiety-coping mechanisms in English learning is also recommended.

Keywords: Affective Filter Hypothesis, Language Anxiety, ESL Learners, Speaking Skills, Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale, Oral Proficiency.

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