Students' Perception on Speaking Anxiety Towards the Fear of Negative Social Evaluation

This research aimed to investigate the students' perception on speaking anxiety towards the fear of negative social evaluation. The fear of negative evaluation is the apprehension about others’ evaluations, which may include avoidance of evaluative situations and the expectation that others might evaluate them negatively. In this case, it happened when the students spoke in front of the class. The participants were students from the English Language Education Department who had taken the required speaking classes. The writer used a qualitative method by distributing a questionnaire to the students to select the exact participants and conducted a semi-structured interview. The research results revealed that the students agreed that they feel anxious when speaking in front of the class because they think they are being watched by others and might get negative responses. The attention of the audience makes them feel more insecure and unable to perform well in class. It can be summarized that the aspect of the fear of negative social evaluation on anxiety has a significant impact on the students’ teaching-learning process, especially in speaking classes.