Thesis for the Degree of Master
The effect of Drama
on students’ anxiety
of speaking English
By
Lee, Seoyeon
Department of TESOL
The Graduate School of TESOL
Sookmyung Women’s University
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LIST OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………….i
LIST OFCONTENTS.....................................................................................ii
LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES.........................................................................................vi
LIST OF APPENDICES................................................................................vii
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................viii
Chapter 1.Introduction ................................................................................
Chapter 2. Literature Review .....................................................................
2.1 Drama in Education .................................................................................
2.1.1 Drama in a Historical Review………………………………………
2.1.2 Drama in English Language Teaching……………………………
2.1.2.1 Types of Drama in ELT…………………………………………..
2.1.2.1.1 Role play………………………………………………
2.1.2.1.2 Mime……………………………………………………………
2.1.2.1.3 Improvisation…………………………………………………
2.1.2.1.4 Simulation…………………………………………………..
2.1.2.1.5 Readers’ theatre………………………………………………
2.1.2.1.6 Process drama…………………………………………………..
2.1.2.2 Effect of Drama in ELT…………………………………………..
2.1.2.2.1 Affective filter……………………………………………….
2.1.2.2.2 Motivation……………………………………………………
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2.1.2.2.3 Meaning in context…………………………………………..
2.1.2.2.4 Learning styles and multiple intelligences……………………
2.1.2.2.5 Psychological benefits………………………………………..
2.2 Anxiety and Language................................................................................
2.2.1 Definition and types of Anxiety……………………………………..
2.2.1.1Trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific anxiety…........
2.2.1.2 Facilitating Anxiety and Debilitating Anxiety…………………..
2.2.1.3 Foreign Language Anxiety………………………………….........
2.2.2 Impact of Foreign Language Anxiety………………………………..
2.2.2.1 Impacts of foreign language anxiety on learning…………………
2.2.2.2 Impacts of Foreign Language anxiety on Speaking Performance….
2.2.3 Possible Factors Contributing To Learners’ Anxiety……………
2.3 Research into the Effects of Drama on Anxiety………………………
2.4 Summary…………………………………………………………………
Chapter 3.Methodology ....................................................................................
3.1 Overview………………………………………………………………
3.2 Research question…………………………………………………………
3.3 Participants....................................................................................................
3.4 Instruments……………………………………………………………
3.4.1 Survey…………………………………………………………………
3.4.2 Reflective journals…………………………………………………….
3.4.3 Interviews………………………………………………..
3.5 Procedure……………………………………………………………………
3.5.1 General Procedure………………………………………………………
3.5.2. The Procedure of the drama class………………………………………
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3.6 Data analysis……………………………………………………………
3.7 Summary
Chapter 4. Results ........................................................................................
4.1 Results from the Survey………………………………………………
4.2 Results from the Reflective journals………………………………….
4.3 Results from the Interviews……………………………………………
Chapter 5. Discussion .....................................................................................
5.1 Research question 1 ......................................................................................
5.2 Research question 2 ......................................................................................
Chapter 6. Conclusions ......................................................................................
6.1
Conclusion .....................................................................................................
6.2
Limitation ......................................................................................................
6.3
Future
Research .............................................................................................
References ..........................................................................................................
Appendices......................................................................................................
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Chapter 1. Introduction
Language anxiety has been frequently reported as a universal challenge in EFL
contexts. Studies in EFL learning and teaching have addressed the necessity of
reducing students’ anxiety in a foreign language class (Horwitz, 1988; Horwitz,
2001; Horwitz & Cope, 1986; Horwitz & Young, 1991; Huang, et al., 2010;
Hussain, et al., 2011; Liu and Jackson, 2008; Liu & Zhang, 2010; Macintyre &
Gardner, 1989; Macintyre & Gardner, 1991; Ohata, 2005).
In particular, getting students to express their ideas or to respond orally to
teachers is a common problem encountered by EFL teachers in Englishspeaking classes. Students were found to be very anxious when responding to
teachers in English. Moreover, students tend to feel anxious when a situation is
viewed as a threat which has effects on their performance. According to Liu
(2006), “anxiety” is found as one of the major factors contributing to students’
reticence. However, a satisfactory exploration on how to reduce EFL students’
anxiety has yet to be conducted. This problem, therefore, has been obviously
considered for foreign language teaching and learning which requires a lowanxiety environment.
In the last decades, encouraging research in foreign language teaching and
learning has shown that drama can help this problem, providing a non
threatening and safe environment for learners, generating desire to
communicate in the target language, and enhancing fluency, engagement and
motivation (Kao and O’Neill, 1998; Stinson and Freebody, 2006; Radin, 1985,
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Stern, 1981; Stinson 2008). The students feel more comfortable speaking the
target language without inhibitions when they are “in role” within some
imaginative situation that is removed from the immediate, real world (Smith,
1984). Dodson (2000) and Phillips (1999) suggests that drama activities such
as role play and improvisation could be useful for practicing and acquiring
vocabulary, lowering the affective filter, and providing a genuine need for
students. Likewise, several studies confirm that drama use in language classes
provides strong motivation to the learners and builds their confidence, and
ultimately reduces the anxiety of students.
Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of drama on students’
anxiety in speaking in English. Considering the fact that language anxiety is a
problem of remarkable proportions in teaching English as a foreign language,
the study aims to explore its application possibility in the context of Korea,
particularly in speaking classes. Accordingly, the study aims to identify the
anxiety levels of students and represent the classroom situation throughout the
teaching drama activities at a university in Korea. Following that, drama
activities, which are assumed to be instrumental in reducing students’ speaking
anxiety, were carried out in a-sixteen-week study. The impact of the drama
activities to anxiety levels of students in speaking in English are investigated.
Furthermore, the possible factors that affect students' anxiety in speaking in
English during the drama activities have been elaborated on. In many studies,
qualitative analysis was used to measure the effectiveness of drama. However,
using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study seeks an answer to
the following questions:
1. How do the drama activities affect students’ anxiety level in speaking in
English?
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2. What are the factors that affect students' anxiety in speaking in English
during the drama activities?
Chapter 2. Literature review
This section intends to define some of the concepts important for the research
in order to give a clear direction of this study. At the same time it provides a
brief outlook, giving possible perspectives in study of language teaching and
learning in an instructional environment.
In this chapter, related literature on drama and language anxiety, especially
speaking English as a part of the focus of this research, is reviewed. First,
literature that discusses a brief historical review of drama teachingin
psychology and the relationship between drama and foreign language teaching
are reviewed. Next, the research discussing the nature and concept of anxiety
and foreign language anxiety follows. Then, the impact of foreign language
anxiety on foreign language achievement, including speaking performance, as
well as the research studies discussing possible sources and factors that
provoke the foreign language anxiety of EFL students is presented. Finally, the
studies into the effects of drama on anxiety are investigated.
2.1 Drama in Education
Drama in education is the use of drama as a means of teaching across the
curriculum. It is used to expand learners’ awareness, to enable them to look at
reality through fantasy and to look below the surface of actions for meanings.
According to McCaslin (1990, p.10) the objective is understanding rather than
playmaking, although aplay may be made in the process. Attitudes rather than
characters are the chief concernas the focus is on process rather than product.
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Since drama becomes a natural means of learning in the developmental history
ofhuman beings, it is evident that this technique could be used effectively in
teaching andlearning. According to Landy (1982, p.5) its elements – imitation,
imagination, role-playing and interpretation account for much of a child’s
learning of language, movement and social behaviour. By acting out the roles
of the father/mother the child learns what aparent is and what is expected of
him/her in his relationship with the parent.
Drama in education, also known as creative drama, is an improvisational,
nonexhibitional, process-centred form of drama in which participants are
guided by a leader to imagine, enact and reflect upon human experiences.
According to Landy (1982, p.5) it requires both logical and intuitive thinking,
personalizes knowledge and yields aesthetic pleasure.
2.1.1 Drama in a Historical Review
Traditionally theatre has been taken to refer to performance whereas drama
has referred to the work designed for stage representation, the body of written
plays (Elam, 1980). In the context of drama teaching however the terms have
been used differently. Theatre was thought to be largely concerned with
communication between actors and an audience; whereas drama was largely
concerned with experience by the participants, irrespective of anyfunction of
communication to an audience (Way, 1967).
In the 1980s and 1990s in England and many other countries there was a fairly
pronounced division between writers and practitioners who advocated
different approaches to teaching drama. Teachers who took a theatre approach
talked about acting, rehearsal and performance whereas teachers with a drama
focus referred more to experience or living through improvisations (Hornbrook,
1989). In practice these tended to be more orientations in the work rather than
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rigid distinctions but the differences are crucial in understanding the way
drama teaching developed; legacies of these approaches are found in
contemporary practice (Fleming, 2003).
The method of drama teaching which developed from the 1950s onwards and
embraced more free forms of dramatic play and improvisation can be seen as a
reaction to the stifling and uncreative approaches at the time which involved
children acting out in a rather formal way the words of others rather than
developing ideas of their own (Slade, 1954). It was suggested that when
participants are engaged in more spontaneous, improvised work (traditionally
called drama) their level of engagement and feeling will be more intense and
genuine than when they are performing on stage (traditionally called theatre).
The theoretical perspectives on drama education were at that time drawn from
writings on child play and the Humanistic School of psychology (Erikson 1963,
1968; Rogers, 1969) rather than on the theatre. The emphasis was on the
personal growth of the individual through creative self expression and the
search for personal meaning. The influence of progressive psychology
theorists as George Kelly in the 1950s and his personal construct theory that
urges people to uncover their own constructs with minimal intervention by the
'therapist' were also apparent in the advocates of drama in education.
The recent history of drama teaching being described here is represented in the
following diagram by Fleming (2003). At the time when the separation of
drama and theatre was happening what was being rejected was the negative
aspects of theatre practice (depicted in the upper right side of the diagram)
when imposed prematurely onyoung people. A more contemporary view of
theatre practice is represented in the lower right quadrant (Theatre 2). Here the
approach is less authoritarian, there is a more fluid concept of what acting and
rehearsal involve and there is greater acceptance ofnon -naturalistic
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approaches. Similarly there has been a change in the way drama has been
conceptualised. The changed conception at Drama 2 in the diagram means that
all drama in the classroom can draw on insights provided by the nature of
drama as art and writings from theatre practitioners (Bolton, 1992; Heathcote,
1980; Shewe and Shaw, 1993).
Figure 2.1 History of drama teaching (Source: Fleming (2003), p.11)
2.1.2 Drama in English Language Teaching
The relationship between drama and English language teaching naturally
flourishes by virtue of all its benefits we can observe in English language
instruction.
Hamilton and McLeod (1993) describe this relationship as follows: “It is hard
to imagine anything else that offers to language teachers such as wide variety
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of types of talks, for example monologues, paired speaking, role-plays, group
discussions, reporting, talking in response to other stimuli, problem-solving,
developing scenarios, acting out, etc. from explaining, complaining, praising,
disagreeing to exhorting, apologising and requesting – there is no language
function that drama is not capable of easily encompassing” (Hamilton and
McLeod, 1993, p.5).
And drama does not have to be used just in order to practice language
functions, grammatical structures or particular vocabulary. It can be easily, and
most of all effectively, exploited in cross-curricular teaching when studying
and exploring topics related to the foreign culture or other school subjects. As
Phillips(1999) suggests the teacher using drama can use topics from other
subjects: the children can act out the scene from history, or the life cycle of a
frog; or he or she can work on the ideas and issues that run through the
curriculum, such as sexism, respect for the environment and road safety”
(Philips, 1999, p. 8).
As already mentioned before, drama used in education provides many
beneficial factors, encouraging teachers to take advantage of its methods and
techniques. In the next sub-sections, types of drama which aim various
functions and the effects of drama in English language teaching are introduced
with their benefits.
2.1.2.1 Types of Drama in ELT
The following are six types of drama activities in ELT provided with their
benefits.
2.1.2.1.1 Role play
Budden (2007) defines role-play as “any speaking activity when you either put
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yourself into somebody else's shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but
put yourself into an imaginary situation (p. 2). According to Kodotchigova
(2001) role play prepares L2 learners for L2 communication in a different
social and cultural context. Role play is really a worthwhile learning
experience for both the students and the teacher. Not only can students have
more opportunities to “act” and “interact” with their peers trying to use the
English language, but also students’ English speaking, listening, and
understanding will improve (Huang, 2008).
2.1.2.1.2 Mine
Dougill (1987) defines mime as “a non-verbal representation of an idea or
story through gesture, bodily movement and expression” (p.13). Mime
emphasizes the paralinguistic features of communication. From the point of
the teacher, miming may as well be a good method how to integrate even those
students whose language abilities are not the best and in most of the activities
want to keep back (Hillova, 2008). Savignon (1983) says that the mime helps
learners become comfortable with the idea of performing in front of peers
without concern for language and that although no language is used during a
mime it can be a spur to use language.
2.1.2.1.3 Improvisation
Landy (1982) defines improvisation as an unscripted, unrehearsed,
spontaneous set of actions in response to minimal directions from a teacher,
usually including statements of which one is, where one is and what one is
doing there. In improvisation, students must create a scene, speak, act, react,
and move without preparing (Davis, n.d.). Maples (2002) emphasizes that
improvisation provides learners with opportunities to not only improve their
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language communication skills, but also to improve their confidence, which
will ultimately lead to the development of positive self-concepts.
Improvisational exercises provide three main goals: student pronunciation
improves, proper use of a grammatical structure is reinforced, and vocabulary
practice is enhanced. It may be important to share with students these
functions in order to engage them in speaking and to build trust so they will
not lose face and will not fear making mistakes (Florea, 2011).
2.1.2.1.4 Simulation
Jones (1980) calls a simulation as case study where learners become
participants in an event and shape the course of the event. The learners have
roles, functions, duties, and responsibilities within a structured situation
involving problem solving. Simulations are generally held to be a structured
set of circumstances' that mirror real life and in which participants act as
instructed. A simulation activity provides a specific situation within which
students can practice various communication skills like asserting oneself,
expressing opinions, convincing others, arguing eliciting opinions, group
problems solving, analyzing situations and so on (Smith, et al., 1984).
2.1.2.1.5 Reader’s Theatre
According to Sloyer (1982) readers’ theatre is an oral presentation of drama,
prose or poetry by two or more readers. Readers first read a story and then
transform the story into script involving several characters. The script is then
performed for an intended audience. To portray a character, readers strives
theatre has been adopted in Western educational settings to improve the
reading fluency and to enhance the reading comprehension of students (Henry,
2011). Because readers' theater focuses on vocal expression, and students have
13
the opportunity to practice repeatedly, pronunciation is a key component
(Davis, et al., n.d.). In creating RT scripts, students increase their knowledge
of language structure (vocabulary, syntax and meaning), and language use
(forms and functions of language use) and the meta-linguistic awareness such
as the ability to talk about the language (Hill, 1990).
2.1.2.1.6 Process Drama
Process drama is ‘a whole-group drama process, improvised in nature’, in
which the teacher and the students work together to create an imaginary
dramatic world and work within that world to explore a particular problem,
situation, theme, or series of related themes, not for a separate audience, but
for the benefit of the participants themselves (Bowell and Heap, 2001: 7). In a
process drama, students play a range of roles and engage in a variety of
reflective out-of-role activities, requiring them to think beyond their own
points of view and consider the topic from multiple perspectives. They emerge
with an expanded self-awareness, and a greater sense of the challenges and the
possibilities facing the society in which they live. Process drama also carries
the potential for rigorous, standards-based learning to occur. Students not only
explore the dynamics, relationships, and conflicts that shape a given situation,
but also to acquire factual knowledge related to the topic of the drama.
2.1.2.2 Effect of Drama in ELT
This section focuses on the benefits of drama in ELT, in terms of affective
filter, motivation, meaning in context, learning styles and multiple
intelligences, and psychological benefits.
2.1.2.2.1 Affective filter
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Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition has been very influential in
the field of second language learning. His theory consists of five hypotheses:
(1) the acquisition-learning hypothesis, (2) the natural order hypothesis, (3) the
monitor hypothesis, (4) the input hypothesis, and (5) the affective filter
hypothesis (Krashen & Terrell, 1983), which teachers should take into account
when teaching a foreign language. The hypothesis that could encourage
teachers most to use drama in their classes is the hypothesis of Affective filter
that embodies Krashen (1988)'s view that a number of ‘affective variables’
play a facilitative role in second language acquisition. These variables include:
motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Krashen (1988) claims that learners
with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of
anxiety are better equipped for success in second language acquisition. Low
motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to ‘raise’
the affective filter and form a ‘mental block’ that prevents comprehensible
input from being used for acquisition (Krashen, 1988).
Drama helps students to overcome resistance to the foreign language and the
fear of making mistakes. It creates a natural need for speaking because it does
not concentrate on language itself, but on creating drama. Focusing on the
creative process more than on final linguistic output enables students to learn
almost unconsciously. As Maley and Duff (1982) opine “every student needs
periods in which he or she has a chance to practice what he or she knows
without restraint, without fear of being wrong. Students need the occasional
chance to take risks in the language, to try out new ways of combining words,
and of course, to find out where the gaps are in their knowledge”(Maley and
Duff, 1982, p. 14).
To provide learners with such opportunities for free practice, teachers using
drama in their classes should create a safe and comfortable atmosphere where
15
students would not be afraid of speaking in the target language. “This kind of
stress-free,
fun
teaching
encourages
pupils
to
participate
without
embarrassment” (Hamilton and McLeod, 1993, p. 4) and it helps them to
overcome the psychological barrier from speaking in a foreign language.
Maley and Duff (1982) give a list of categories of language that learners use
naturally and without further thinking during drama activities:
 “Transactional language - the language needed for getting things done
in a groupsituation.
 Discussion language - used to come to agreement about something, to
describe, comment on, or recall the activity in questions.
 Performance language - it is the end product of some of the activities,
but it is inmany senses the least important precisely because it
involves the most preparation. Clearly, almost any language function
can come into play here, depending on the nature of the activity.”
(Maley and Duff, 1982, p. 17)
2.1.2.2.2 Motivation
Good motivation is one of the factors necessary for efficient learning. Harmer
(2001) defines motivation as “some kind of internal drive which pushes
someone to do things in order to achieve something” (p. 51). Drama gives
students the chance to learn by doing “where students are involved in
experimentation in order to arrive at knowledge” (Harmer, 2007, p.20), which
is much more engaging than just learning by rote.
When concerning the student’s motivation, it is often referred to two types:
extrinsic, which “may be influenced by a number of external factors such as
attitude of society, family and peers to the subject in question (...), and
intrinsic motivation that is generated by what happens inside the classroom;
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this could be teacher’s methods or activities that students take part in” (Harmer,
2007, p. 20). Harmer also proposes that if we “involve the students or excite
their curiosity and provoke participation, we will help them to stay interested
in the subject” (Harmer, 2007, p. 20).
The use of drama undoubtedly represents one of the methods of work used by
teachers to provoke intrinsic motivation. Not only does it help to build a good
teacher student relationship, but it also actively engages all the students and all
the time, so “in a sense, motivation is not needed when working through drama,
because the enjoyment comes from imaginative personal involvement” (Maley
and Duff, 1982, p.13). As Maley and Duff further (1982) explain “drama
activities also help to get rid of the diffidence and boredom that come from
being forced to stay passive most of the time” (p. 13).
2.1.2.2.3 Meaning in context
Appropriate understanding of the context of the discourse is one of the
mostimportant elements for understanding the meaning. As Harmer (2007)
claims “meaning of language depends on where it occurs within a larger
stretch of discourse, and thus the relationship that the different language
elements have with what comes before and after them. In other words,
speakers and writers have to be able to operate with more than just words and
grammar; they have to be able to string utterances together” (p. 59).
Drama represents an ideal method of work if teachers want to put the meaning
for students into a sizeable context. Unlike in guided practice, students are
involved in real communication while they “activate language to communicate
real meaning, rather than just practicing language” (Harmer, 2007, p. 270) and
thus develop their communicative competence in a natural way, using body
language, making pauses and interruptions, showing emotions, and creating
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relationships. Phillips encourages using drama in second language teaching
because “it encourages children to speak and gives them the chance to
communicate, even with limited language, using non-verbal communication,
such as body movements and facial expressions.” (Phillips, 1999, p.6)
Moreover, making students focused on the process of the creation of the drama
rather than the final language product provides them with natural and
purposeful need for speaking, which describe Maley and Duff (1982) by
stating that “the problem of not wanting to speak or, more often, not knowing
what to say is practically resolved because the activity makes it necessary to
talk”. (p.13-14) According to these educators “drama techniques have the
singular merit of directly engaging students’ feelings and, as a result, often
making them aware of the need to
be able to express them appropriately”.
(Maley and Duff, 1982, p.11)
2.1.2.2.4 Learning styles and multiple intelligences
Harmer (2007) stems from the theories of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming
and Multiple Intelligences and warns that “in any one classroom we have a
number of different individuals with different learning styles and preferences,
which means that we have to offer a wide range of different activity types in
our lessons in order to cater for individual differences and needs” (p. 16). Such
classroom forms a perfect environment for using drama work which includes
all kinds of stimuli and can develop all types of human intelligences.
The theory of the Neuro-Linguistic Programming introduces to the educational
theories different stimuli that students prefer while learning and that
predetermine their learning style. According to this concept, the learners can
be divided between visual learners, responding the best to the visual stimuli
such as pictures, written texts and diagrams; auditory learners, benefiting most
18
from the auditory input such as traditional lecturing or music; and kinaesthetic
learners who are the most successful when they are aged with the learning
activity. They acquire information fastest when participating in a science lab,
drama presentation, skit, field trip, dance, or other active activity. Because of
the high numbers of kinaesthetic learners, education is shifting toward a more
hands-on approach; manipulatives and other ‘props’ should be incorporated
into almost every school subject, from physical education to language arts
(Butterfield, 1989).
Another concept of students’ individualities in learning that teachers should
take into consideration is the theory of multiple intelligences, first introduced
in 1980’s by an acknowledged American psychologist Howard Gardner. His
theory claims that each individual disposes of different types of intelligences
defined as “abilities to solve problems that are of consequence in a particular
cultural setting or community. The problem-solving skill allows one to
approach a situation in which a goal is to be obtained and to locate the
appropriate route to that goal” (Gardner, 1993, p.15).An individual can
demonstrate an extraordinary facility in one of the seven described
intelligences: musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic,
spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal; but each individual has usually
developed several of them. An educator’s task is to create a variety of learning
activities that would help particular students to develop their intelligences.
Considering the fact that drama includes all kinds of stimuli, visual, auditory,
and kinaesthetic, and encourages students to develop all the intelligences
through active exploration of reality and problem-solving, its use in education
can be regarded as extremely beneficial.
2.1.2.2.5 Psychological benefits
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Wessels (1987) provides the best definition of what drama in education is and
how it benefits students’ learning and personality development. “If a learner of
English asked you ‘What is a blind person?’, you might simply reply, ‘A blind
person cannot see’, and this would probably satisfy him intellectually. But if
you replied, ‘Shut your eyes and try to find your pen on the desk in front of
you’, you would be involving him in the actual experience of being blind, and
would thus satisfy him not only intellectually, but emotionally as well, and
possibly inspire in him feelings of empathy with all blind people. He would be
more likely to remember the meaning of the word as a result of this moment of
direct experience” (Wessels, 1987, p. 7).
As drama gives the direct experience of human reality, students are first
getting to know themselves and then also the others. They naturally develop
empathy, by creating and taking over different social roles and asking
questions like ‘What is he or she thinking?’ ‘What does he or she feel?’ ‘How
would I feel being in their shoes?’, etc. Hamilton and McLeod (2001) describe
drama as a process of social learning: “Involving relations with others, it
promotes social and adaptive skills which in their turn feed in to the process of
learning a foreign language. (...) Learners are encouraged to explore
themselves and their reactions in relation to the outside world in a way which
can be both strengthening and enriching” (p. 5).
2.2 Anxiety and Language
2.2.1Definition and types of Anxiety
In order to understand the specific type of anxiety that learners experience in a
foreign language classroom, it is important to first consider anxiety in general
terms.
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As a psychological construct, anxiety is described as “a state of apprehension,
a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object” (Scovel, 1991,
cited in Tanveer, 2007, p. 3). Speiberger (1976, cited in Wang, 2005, p. 13)
distinguished anxiety from fear by pointing out that although anxiety and fear
are both “unpleasant emotional reactions to the stimulus conditions perceived
as threatening,” fear is usually derived from a “real, objective danger in the
external environment” while the threatening stimulus of anxiety may not be
known. Spielberger (1983, cited in Wilson, 2006, p. 41) defined anxiety as the
“subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry
associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system.” More
specifically, Morris, David, & Hutchings (1981, cited in Wilson, 2006, p. 41)
claimed that general anxiety consists of two components: “worry and
emotionality.” Worry or “cognitive anxiety” refers to “negative expectations
and cognitive concerns about oneself, the situation at hand, and possible
consequences,” and emotionality or “somatic anxiety” concerns “one’s
perceptions of the physiological-affective elements of the anxiety experience,
which are indications of autonomic arousal and unpleasant feeling states, such
as nervousness, upset stomach, pounding heart, sweating, and tension” (Morris,
David, & Hutchings, 1981, cited in Wilson, 2006, p. 41, & cited in Cubucku,
2007, p. 134).
2.2.1.1 Trait, State and Situation-Specific Anxiety
MacIntyre and Gardner (1991, p. 87-92) identified three approachesto the
study of anxiety, which are: trait anxiety, state anxiety, and situation-specific
anxiety.
Trait anxiety is “an individual’s likelihood of becoming anxious in any
situation” (Spielberger, 1983, cited in MacIntyre& Gardner, 1991, p. 87). As
21
trait anxiety is a relatively stable personality characteristic, a person who is
trait anxious would probably become anxious in many different kinds of
situations, “more frequently or more intensely than most people do” (Woodrow,
2006, p. 309). This approach to anxiety research has been criticized in that the
interpretation of trait anxiety would be meaningless without being considered
"in interaction with situations" because a particular situation may be perceived
as anxiety-provoking by some but not by others although those people may
have similar trait anxiety scores (MacIntyre& Gardner, 1991, p. 88).
State anxiety, in contrast to the stable nature of trait anxiety, is momentary and
thus not an enduring characteristic of an individual’s personality. It is the
apprehension that is experienced at a particular moment in time (MacIntyre&
Gardner, 1991, p. 90). In other words, it is a transient anxiety, an unpleasant
emotional temporary state, a response to a particular anxiety-provoking
stimulus such as an important test (Spielberger, 1983, cited in Wang, 2005,
p.13, and cited in Tanveer, 2007, p. 4). The higher the level of trait anxiety an
individual possess, the higher the level of state anxiety he or she may
experience in stressful situations (MacIntyre& Gardner, 1991, p. 90). The
state-anxiety approach to anxiety research has been criticized for asking the
question “Are you nervous now?” instead of “Did this situation make you
nervous?;” in other words, it does not the subjects to ascribe their anxiety
experience to any particular source (MacIntyre& Gardner, 1991, p. 90).
Situation-specific anxiety reflects a trait anxiety that recurs consistently over
time within a given situation (MacIntyre& Gardner, 1991, p. 87; Spielberger,
Anton and Bedell, 1976, cited in Woodrow, 2006, p. 309). Zheng (2008, p. 2)
proposed that the three categories of anxiety can be identified on a continuum
from stability to transience, with trait anxiety related to a generally stable
predisposition to be anxious across situations on one end, state anxiety related
22
to a temporary unpleasant emotional state on the other, and situational-specific
anxiety related to the probability of becoming anxious in particular situations
in the middle of the continuum. According to MacIntyre and Gardner (1991, p.
90), situation-specific anxiety can be considered as trait anxiety, which is
limited to a specific context. This perspective examines anxiety reactions in a
“well-defined situation” such as public speaking, during tests, when solving
mathematics problems, or in a foreign language class (MacIntyre & Gardner,
1991, p. 90).
2.2.1.2 Facilitating Anxiety and Debilitating Anxiety
Facilitating anxiety improves learning and performance, while debilitating
anxiety is associated with poor learning and performance. According to
Scovel (1978, cited in Tanveer, 2007, p. 10), anxiety, in its debilitating and
facilitating forms, serves “simultaneously to motivate and to warn” the learner.
Facilitating anxiety occurs when the difficulty level of the task triggers the
proper amount of anxiety (Scovel, 1978, cited in Zheng, 2008, p. 2). In such
case, facilitating anxiety “motivates the learner to ‘fight’ the new learning
task; it gears the learner emotionally for approach behavior” (Scovel, 1991,
cited in Tanveer, 2007, p. 11). However, although a certain level of anxiety
may be beneficial, too much anxiety can become debilitating: it motivates the
learner to “flee” the new learning task; and stimulates the individual
emotionally to adopt avoidance behavior which may lead to avoidance of
work and inefficient work performance (Scovel, 1978, cited in Zheng, 2008, p.
2; Scovel, 1991, cited in Tanveer, 2007, p. 11).
Such phenomenon can be best described by the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which
suggests a curvilinear association between arousal and performance (Wilson,
23
2006, p. 45). When represented graphically on an inverted U-shaped curve, the
Yerkes-Dodson Law shows that too little arousal produces minimum
performance; moderate arousal enhances performance and reaches a peak at
the top of the curve; after that, too much arousal will again hinder performance
(MacIntyre, 1995, p. 92).
Figure 2.2 Inverted U relation between anxiety and performance (Source: MacIntyre,
1995, p. 92)
2.2.1.3 Foreign Language Anxiety
According to Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), foreign language anxiety
belongs to situation-specific anxiety. In the following, I will review the
literature on foreign language anxiety concerning the concept of foreign
language anxiety, the construct of foreign language anxiety, and the effects of
24
foreign language anxiety.
The role of anxiety in language learning was not put much emphasis because
previous studies usually generated contradictory results and were hard to
interpret (Chastain, 1975; Scovel, 1978). Gardner and MacIntyre (1993a)
believe that using general measures of anxiety is the reason to generate
contradictory results. Based on the situation-specific perspective, recent
studies have focused on anxiety which is specific to language situations. After
examining the concept of language anxiety empirically, researchers find
language anxiety is distinct from any other type of anxiety and is not merely a
composite of other anxieties (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; MacIntyre &
Gardner, 1991b). In order to identify and measure foreign language anxiety,
Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) developed the Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), in which 33 question items ask
respondents to respond to situations specific to foreign language learning
anxiety and reflect the three components of foreign language anxiety:
communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation
(Ganschow& Sparks, 1996). For example, they ask questions about students’
anxiety in situations like speaking in front of the language class, taking exams
in language course, and perceiving other students’ evaluation of them. Due to
the scale’s success on construct validation and reliability, FLCAS has been
widely adopted by many researchers to explore learners’ foreign language
anxiety (Aida, 1994; Chang, 1999; Ganschow et al., 1994; Ganschow& Sparks,
1996; Liao, 1999).
Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) describe three components of foreign
language anxiety: communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of
negative
evaluation.
According
to
McCroskey’s
(1978)
definition,
communication apprehension is an individual’s level of fear or anxiety
25
associated with either real or anticipated communication with other persons.
Horwitz , Horwitz, and Cope (1986) submit the construct of communication
apprehension to their conceptualization of foreign language anxiety. They
think interpersonal interactions are the major emphasis in the English class. In
a foreign language classroom, language learners’ oral tasks include not only
learning a second language but also performing the language. Therefore,
communication apprehension in a foreign language context is different from
that in other context. Oral communication consists of two components:
listening and speaking. Speaking is anxiety-provoking in foreign language
activities (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991c). Daly (1991) and Young (1986) find
that most students are particularly anxious when they have to speak a foreign
language in front of their class. As to listening, it is a problem for language
learners, too. Foreign language learners usually have difficulty understanding
others. Because of the lack of control of oral communication, communication
apprehension emerges (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991d).
Test anxiety is defined by Sarason (1984) as “the tendency to view with alarm
the consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluative situation.” Test
anxiety occurs when students have poor performance in the previous tests.
Students develop a negative stereotype about tests and have irrational
perceptions in evaluative situations. These students might have unpleasant test
experience from either language class or other subjects, and they transplanted
the unhappy image to the present English class unconsciously (Chan & Wu,
2000). Test-anxious students may have false beliefs in language learning.
These students habitually put impractical demands on themselves and feel that
anything less than a perfect test performance is a failure (Horwitz, Horwitz, &
Cope, 1986). Young (1991) claims test anxiety would affect foreign language
learners with low levels of oral proficiency more than those with high levels of
26
proficiency. On the other hand, learners experience more language anxiety in
highly evaluative situations. Researchers find that test anxiety could be
significantly higher under an official and unfamiliar condition (Daly, 1991;
Young, 1991). Moreover, an oral test is more complicated because it provokes
both test anxiety and oral communication apprehension. The fact reveals that
the constructs of foreign language anxiety overlap and are difficult to
distinguish. Unfortunately, constant evaluations by the instructor in the foreign
language classrooms are rather commonplace, and “even the brightest and
most prepared students often make errors” (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986),
so test-anxious learners will doubtlessly suffer stress and anxiety frequently.
As mentioned above, test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety deriving
from a fear of failure and evaluative situations. Although it overlaps with other
constructs of foreign language anxiety, test anxiety is relevant to academic
context where performance evaluation is frequent.
Fear of negative evaluation is defined as ‘apprehension about others’
evaluations, distress over their negative evaluations, and the expectation that
others would evaluate oneself negatively” (Watson, & Friend, 1969). Although
it is similar to test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation is broader in scope
because it is not restricted to test-taking situations. In addition to situations of
tests, it may take place in any social, evaluative situation such as interviewing
for a job or speaking in foreign language class. MacIntyre and Gardner
(1991d) propose that fear of negative evaluation is closely related to
communication apprehension. When students are unsure of what they are
saying, fear of negative evaluation occurs and they may doubt about their
ability to make a proper impression. In a foreign language context, negative
evaluation derives mainly from both teachers and their peers because foreign
languages require continual evaluation by the teacher and anxious students
27
may also be intensely susceptible to the evaluations of their peers. Students
with fear of negative evaluation might adopt the action of avoidance. In Aida’s
(1994) opinion, students with fear of negative evaluation might “sit passively
in the classroom, withdrawing from classroom activities that could otherwise
enhance their improvement of the language skills. In extreme cases, students
may think of cutting class to avoid anxiety situations, causing them to be left
behind.” These components are considered to have a deleterious effect on
second language acquisition. Besides, they overlap and are closely related to
each other (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986).
Over the past few years, foreign language educators have found that anxiety
plays a role in success or failure in the foreign language classroom (Ganschow,
et al., 1994). In addition, a lot of researchers indicate that high level of anxiety
can interfere with foreign language learning (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986;
MacIntyre & Gardner, 1991c; Madsen, et al., 1991). Actually, anxiety can be
either facilitating or debilitating. Facilitating anxiety motivates the learner to
adopt an approach attitude and is willing to confront the new learning task. On
the other hand, debilitating anxiety motivates the learner to assume an
avoidance attitude and therefore tends to escape from the new learning task
(Scovel, 1978). The factor of task difficulty affects the learner to develop a
facilitating or a debilitating anxiety. MacIntyre (1995) suggests only when "a
given task is relatively simple," foreign language anxiety could be facilitating.
In such a situation, anxiety may improve performance through increased effort.
But once the task is too difficult, anxiety will impair performance. Therefore,
anxiety could either benefit or impair the language learning and performance,
and the determinant is task difficulty.
The above-mentioned approach and avoidance behavior caused by anxiety can
be further confirmed by the theory of language class risk-taking and language
28
class discomfort. Ely (1986) defines language class risk-taking as “an
individual’s tendency to assume risks in using the L2 in the second language
class.” The learners’ willingness or policy of approach to undertake actions
that involve a significant of risk is an important characteristic of successful
foreign language learning. Because successful learners have to be willing to
try out the new language and take the risk of being wrong. Conversely,
language class discomfort is the personality construct that is contrary to
language class risk-taking. Adopting the policy of avoidance, a language
learner with discomfort is unwilling to participate in activities or volunteer
answers. Consequently, he performs poorly in the language classroom settings.
Although anxiety could be facilitating or debilitating, it in most cases
“negatively affects performance in the second language” (MacIntyre &
Gardener, 1991b). In the following, the impact of language anxiety on foreign
language achievement will be reviewed.
2.2.2Impacts of Foreign Language Anxiety
Impacts of foreign language anxiety have been found both on foreign language
learning and speaking performance.
2.2.2.1 Impacts of foreign language anxiety on learning
In second language acquisition, impacts of languageanxiety play a vital role in
foreign language learning performance. According to Oxford (1999), language
anxiety stands high among the factors having influences overlanguage learning
no matter that what learning setting is. As such, research studies into foreign
language classroom anxiety discovered negative correlations between
language anxiety and foreign language learning performance.
In Krashen’s Monitor Model, a key role is given toemotional variables that
29
affect the language acquisition process. One of it is thesignificant hypotheses
in this model is “Affective Filter Hypothesis.” This hypothesis describes that
only the affective optimal conditions yield language acquisition. Theaffective
conditions stated here are motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety. In termsof
anxiety, it is said that optimal conditions are found when anxiety is very low.
As Krashen (1982) states, only a student whose anxiety is low is able to seek
out a newinput and process it in the target language.
Tobias (1986) divides language learning into three stages: input; processing;
and output (see Figure 2.1) and claims that these stages can help study theroots
of anxiety’s effects. The input stage is associated with the learners’
firstexperience with a given stimulus at a given time and is said to be the
initialrepresentations of the items in memory. In this sense, internal
representations aremade, and then attention, concentration and encoding occur
when encounteringexternal stimuli. The processing stage relates to the
performance of cognitiveoperations on the subject matters, including
organization, storage, and assimilation ofthe material. So, this stage is
concerned with unseen, internal manipulations of itemsfrom the input stage.
For the output stage, it involves the production of material previously learned.
Hence, the production (performance) of this stage highly depends on previous
stages when there is a correspondence involving the organization of the output
and the speed to retrieve the items from the memory. In this sense, this stage
relates to language learners demonstrating their ability in using a second
language.
With regard to the impact of anxiety on language learning, MacIntyre (1999)
states that the cognitive effects of anxiety on learning performance can be
perceived in the stages of input, processing and output. Anxiety at the input
stage is similar to the role of the filter, hindering the information from entering
30
into the system of cognitive processing. In the processing stage, the effect of
anxiety is to distract students’ attention, having an impact on both the speed
and accuracy of learning, and at the output stage, anxiety impairs speaking and
writing abilities in the second language learning.
Figure 2.3 Model of the effects of anxiety on learning from instruction (Source:
MacIntyre, 1999 p. 35)
In sum, language anxiety has tremendous impacts on foreign language learning
performance in all three learning stages: input, processing, and output. With
the effects of foreign language anxiety on foreign language learning in each
stage, research indicates that negative relationships between foreign language
classroom anxiety and foreign language learning performance can be assumed.
Thus, language anxiety brings about inefficient foreign language learning
performance.
2.2.2.2 Impacts of Foreign Language anxiety on Speaking
Performance
31
With a concern for oral competence of EFL students, many investigations turn
to study anxiety in relation to its debilitating impact on EFL learners’ speaking
skill. Thus, research studies into the relationships between language anxiety
and foreign language speaking performance have been investigated. Horwitz et
al. (1986) demonstrated that high levels of anxiety led to low speaking
performance. That is, with a fear of negative evaluation, students developed
communication apprehension, resulting in a fear to speak in a foreign language,
a feeling of nervousness, confusion, and even panic.
MacIntyre and Gardner (1991) asserted that because of foreign language
anxiety, students turned into negative self-talk, leading them to poor speaking
performance and, in turn, affected their abilities to process information in
foreign language contexts.
Phillips (1992) studied the effects of foreign language anxiety on students’ oral
performance and attitudes and revealed that students with higher language
anxiety tended to say less, produce shorter communication units, and use fewer
dependent clauses and target language than low anxiety students in an oral
exam.
McIntyre and Charos (1995) discovered social effects of anxiety on speaking
performance. They found that students’ willingness to communicate could be
reduced if students were provided with an opportunity to communicate in a
natural setting where their speaking fluency could be decreased. However,
successful students were willing to talk in order to learn. Also, MacIntyre
(1998) indicated that learners with higher language anxiety tended to avoid
interpersonal communication more often than less anxious learners and that
anxiety provoking could impair the quality of communication output. To
clarify, the information retrieval process might get stuck by the “freezing up”
moments when getting anxious.
32
Wilson (2006) examined the relationships of overall proficiency of English
oral performance, variables in an association with overall proficiency, oral test
performance, and foreign language anxiety of a group of tertiary students. The
study revealed that there was a statistically significant and negative
relationship between language anxiety and oral test grades using two oral
performance criteria.
Highly anxious group of students tended to perform oral test grades
significantly more poorly than those with moderate and low anxiety.
Obviously, high anxiety led to overall poor English proficiency.
Woodrow (2006) studied the debilitating impacts of second language anxiety
on oral performance of advanced English for academic purposes (EAP)
students studying on intensive EAP courses prior to entering Australian
universities.
The study found that a second language anxiety was considered a significant
predictor of oral achievement and anxious language learners can experience
difficulties in retrieval interference and skills deficit.
In brief, based on the above aforementioned literature review on the pervasive
impacts of foreign language anxiety, specifically on speaking performance it
was found that speaking in the target language seemed to be among the most
threatening experience of foreign language learners, resulting in their poor
speaking performance.
2.2.2.3 Possible Factors Contributing To Learners’ Anxiety
Scholars and research studies into foreign language classroom anxiety have
proposed sources of foreign language anxiety in the following different aspects.
The primary sources of language anxiety, explicated by Horwitz et al. (1986),
are communication apprehension (e.g., difficulty in understanding the
33
teacher’s instruction) negative evaluation (e.g., fear of correction and fear of
making mistakes) and a general feeling of anxiety (e.g., fear of failing the
class) (Horwtiz et al., 1986; Pappamihiel, 2002; Casado and Dereshiwsky,
2004).
Young (1991) identifies six potential sources of foreign language classroom
anxiety based on the following three factors: the learner, the teacher, and the
instructional practice. He postulates that language anxiety is caused by (a)
personal and interpersonal anxiety; (b) learners‟ beliefs about language
learning; (c) instructors‟ beliefs about language teaching; (d) instructorlearner interactions; (e) classroom procedures; and (f) language testing. These
sources of language anxiety are interrelated.
Price (1991) states that language students are found most anxious when they
were asked to speak in front of their friends and this is attributed to a fear of
being laughed at, making fools of themselves, and being embarrassed.
Koch and Terrell (1991) account that among the 23 activities judged to trigger
anxiety, oral class presentation is found to be the activity that triggers the most
anxiety for the first two years of NA Spanish classes at the University of
California, Irvine.
Von Wörde (2003) reveals that an inability to comprehend what is being
taught is a cause of a considerable anxiety. That is to say, anxiety might be
provoked by an inability to listen to a teacher speaking too fast and insisting
using English at all times in the class. Students, therefore, cannot keep up
during class and they then carry this difficulty over into the homework
assignments. These factors, consequently, make students become tense
because they cannot clearly perceive what has been taught.
In sum, most of the various sources of foreign language classroom anxiety
34
seem related to affective issues. These sources could be students‟ personality
factors, learning and teaching styles, interaction between a teacher and learners,
a classroom management and teaching methodology. To investigate causes of
foreign language classroom anxiety, these affective factors should be taken
into consideration.
2.3 Research into the Effects of Drama on Anxiety
Research investigating whether drama-based curricula positively affect learner
anxietyis relatively recent. Kao (1994) pioneered the investigation of the effect
of process-oriented drama on anxiety in L2 oral skills. Her research
investigated 23 Taiwanese university students who were learning English.
Qualitative analyses of the teacher's perceptions gathered from video, audio,
and written class records suggest a positive impact on the learning experience:
drama provided learners with more opportunities to speak the L2, resulting in
learners applying communicative strategies; interaction between teacher and
students, as well as between students increased; learners gained more
confidence in speaking English because the drama-based activities encouraged
them to convey their thoughts in an natural way. The learners who felt
“afraid” of speaking in the target language prior to the commencement of the
course became more confident after participating in the drama program.
However, other learners with very low self-esteem and lower language
proficiency seemed to have benefited less from the course.
Another example of how drama can affect anxiety has been provided by
Coleman (2005) in her research with adolescent Korean English learners. On
the last day of classes, two types of data collection were presented to learners:
a ten-item questionnaire on a six point Likert scale (1 = not at all to 6 =
35
completely); and an interview with ten questions about learners’ perceptions of
the drama-based curriculum on a three-point Likert scale (from1 = not helpful
to 3 = very helpful). Results from both questionnaires suggest that participants
ranked the statement “feel more relaxed speaking English” the highest (M =
5.07). In addition, results from the interview revealed that learners ranked the
statement “manages anxiety and apprehension” the lowest (M = 2.12).
However, Coleman (2005) concedes that factors other than the drama
instruction might have influenced results. For example, it could be that
learners' age affected the results.
More recently, Piazzoli (2011) examined the impact of process-oriented drama
on L2 learners' anxiety levels. Six process-oriented drama workshops were
designed and delivered to twelve advanced learners of Italian enrolled in a
third-year course at a university in Brisbane, Australia. The workshops
included a reflection on Italian socio-cultural issues through discussion,
improvisations, and the presentation of formulaic language structures. At the
end of each workshop, a forum was provided for learners to reflect on
intercultural issues.
Qualitative data were gathered through video-recording of the workshops, the
researchers' reflective journal, transcriptions of the forums, semi-structured
interviews, three concept mapping diagrams, and group sessions using videostimulated recall, in which learners watched segments from each process
drama and were asked to comment. Results of the data analysis suggest that
learners who experienced language anxiety benefited from the process drama
workshops. Through the role they played, the learners gained more confidence
in speaking the L2. In addition, the transcriptions from the group forums and
interviews suggest that the learners did not feel “worried”, “scared”, or
“threatened”, and were not “judged” while speaking the L2 during the process
36
drama workshops. The author suggests that process drama lowers language
anxiety for learners who are often reluctant to speak the L2, and builds selfconfidence.
2.4 Summary
This chapter outlines the theoretical framework of this study. The first,
theoretical part concerns the concept of Drama in Education and examines the
impact in English language teaching. Evidence has demonstrated that drama
helps to facilitate real communication and language skill development. It is
also found that drama motivates students to participate in classroom activities
and boosts self-confidence. The next part deals with literature of foreign
language anxiety in terms of concept, construct, effects, and impact on foreign
language learning. It is obvious that foreign language anxiety affects foreign
language learning. Although the majority of scholars tend to support the use of
dramaactivities to lower anxiety about speaking a second language, it seems
thatstudies on anxiety about speaking in the context of Korea are few. Sources
ofanxiety about speaking English may be different in adrama-oriented second
language classroom since students tend to have more chancesto perform in the
class. The next chapter will state the research questions and outlinethe research
design of this study.
37
Chapter 3. Research Methodology
3.1 Overview
This study reports part of an investigation of the effect of drama on students’
reticence and anxietyinspeaking in English.This section outlines the research
design of this study.It will first state theresearch questions and describe the
participants involved in this study. Next, it will discuss the four instruments
used to help in answering the two research questions, and the procedures
associated with administering the data collection in detail. Finally, analysis of
the data collected, describing what methods were used and how they answered
the two research questions will be presented.
3.2 Research questions
In the light of the research discussed in chapter 2, this study attempted to
answer the following research questions:
1) How do the drama activities affect students’anxiety level in speaking in
English?
2) What are the factors that affect students' anxiety in speaking in English
during the drama activities?
38
3.3 Participants
The participants in this study were 27 female undergraduate students enrolled
in the drama class at a university located in Seoul, Korea, from March 5
through June 20, 2014. Twenty-six of these participants identified as native
Korean speakers and one identified as a native Chinese speaker. They attended
three hours a week for a 16 -week semester.
A total of 27 students, twenty students (70%) were Englishmajors (Teaching
English as a second Language (TESL) and English Language and Literature)
and seven students (30%) were non-English majors(Education, Economics,
Multimedia Science, Business Management, Physical Education, and Child
Welfare), participated in the study (See Figure 3.1).A first-year student(4%,
n=1), sophomores (30%, n=8), juniors(26%, n=7), and seniors(41%, n=11)
participated in the current study(See Table 3.1).Their proficiency level ranged
from mid-intermediated to high-advanced.
The participants ranged in agefrom 19 to 25, whose mean age was 22 years.
The general information about these participants is summarized in Table 3.2.
The participants varied substantially with regard to their prior exposure to
English. In terms of the period of English study, themajority of the participants
(63%, n=17) hadhad the experience of studying or living abroad (see Table
3.3). More than half participants (59%, n=9)had studied abroad for one month
or one year, including 7 participants (21.4%) who had lived abroad for two
years or more(see Table 3.3).
Figure 3.1 Description of Participants' Majors
39
Note: (Number of students)
Table 3.1 Participants’ school year
School year
Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
Total
Number of student
1
8
7
11
27
%
4
30
26
41
100
Table 3.2 General information about participants
Total participants
Age range
Average age
Starting age to
learn English
27
19-25
22
3-11
Table 3.3 Experience of studying or living aboard
Answer
Yes
No
Total
Number of
student
17
10
27
%
63
37
100
How long
Number of student
%*
1-5monthes
3
18
1year
7
41
40
Starting age to
learn spoken
English
4-20
2-4years
3
18
5-9years
Total
4
17
23
100
*Parentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
3.4 Instruments
To investigate the effect of drama on students’ anxiety ofspeaking English, a
triangulation of methods wereused: survey, observations, reflective journals
and interviews, as detailed below.
3.4.1 Survey
In this study the Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) was used to
the students to measure their anxiety levels about speaking in a drama
classroom. The PSCAS was developed from that in Yaikhong and Usaha’s
(2012) study which was adapted from previous scales: Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al. (1986); Personal Report
of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) and Personal Report of Public
Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA-34) by McCroskey (1970); and Speaker Anxiety
Scale (SA) by Clevenger and Halvorson (1992) based on their critical
appraisals. 25 items were directly adopted to reflect the situation in the drama
classroom where students are supposed to speak in English in front of a group
of individuals (See the Appendix A, 1-25). As theorized by Yaikhong and
Usaha (2012), the PSCAS intended to measure four dimensions of public
speaking class anxiety: communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of
negative evaluation, and comfort in using English. The scale was checked in
terms of reliability and construct validity in which a factor analysis of the
PSCAS was performed.
41
Table 3.4 Four Dimensions of the PSCAS
Dimension
Communication Apprehension
Test Anxiety
Fear of Negative Evaluation
Comfort in using English
Total items (25)
7
4
9
5
Items no.
3, 4, 6, 7, 19, 20, 22
1, 9, 16, 23
2, 8, 11, 13, 17,18, 21, 24, 25
5, 10, 12, 14, 15
The scale items about four dimensions of the PSCAS are grouped in Table 3.4
(See the Appendix A for detailed PSCAS of each item). The scale measures
communication apprehension consisting of 7 items which indicated
apprehension of speech communication, by answers such as “I start to panic
when I have to speak English without a preparation in advance” and “I get
nervous and confused when I am speaking English”; test anxiety having 4
items suggestive of fear of English tests such as “I never feel quite sure of
myself while I am speaking English” and “The more speaking tests I have, the
more confused I get.”; fear of negative evaluation comprising 9 items which
were reflective of fear of being negatively evaluated, such as “I am afraid that
other students will laugh at me while I am speaking English” and “I keep
thinking that other students are better at speaking English than I.”; and comfort
in using English including 5 items which expressed confidence in speaking
English such as ,“I have no fear of speaking English” and “I face the prospect
of speaking Englishwith confidence”.
The PSCAS was designed on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘Strongly
Disagree’ to ‘Strongly Agree’ with values 1–5 and applied to the participants
both before and after the drama activities respectively.
3.4.2 Reflective journals
In order to gather additional data about personal anxiety provoking situations
and affective factors on speaking English during the drama activities, the
42
participants were each required to write 9 reflective journals during the study.
They had to write one journal entries per drama lesson and worked on writing
entries at home freely, which were submitted to the researcher. Journals have
been used to investigate anxiety in various studies as a data collection method
(e.g. Bailey, 1995; Halbach, 2000; Hilleson, 1996; Parkinson et al., 2003).
According to Nunan (1992), journals may provide ‘insights in psychological
aspects of language development’ (p.121). Keeping journals could benefit
students as they would reflect more on their second language learning. It is
also a useful tool to look at what students experience in the drama class.
The participants’ were also provided with guided questions which were mainly
consisted of 3 sections (See the Appendix B). The first section was an overall
lesson writing task that required the students to write what they learn from the
drama lesson. In the second section, the students were encouraged to write
their experiences or observations, and their reflections in the learning drama
activity. They were also encouraged to connect their thoughts and feelings and
experiences with the drama activity they were engaged in. In the last section,
they could write about their anxiety experienced in the drama activity. They
were told they could write as much as they wanted in English, but at least 2
pages. They got feedback from the researcher but they did not be correct the
grammatical mistakes.
3.4.3 Interviews
To get a more comprehensive insider view of anxiety in the drama classroom,
1 high-anxious, 1 moderate-anxious, and 2 low-anxious students from the post
survey result of the PSCAS were invited for a semi-structured interview. The
researcher modified the questions and procedures according to the
interviewees’ responses. There were nine questions for student interview (See
43
the Appendix C). These prepared questions were designed based on the
research questions. Interview questions covered such aspects as personality,
educational experience, personal experience, participation and level of anxiety
in University English lessons, self-assessed oral English proficiency, and
reasons for feeling anxious. These questions were not asked in a fixed order,
and the actual wording was not determined in advance. Modification was
made according the survey results and participants’ responses. Just as Patton
(1990) suggested that participant’s response format should be open-ended, the
interviewer did not supply and predetermine the phrases or categories that
must be used by respondents to express themselves. The strategy of openended response helped capture the complexities of the respondents’ individual
perceptions and experiences.
In case the interviewees may have difficulty understanding the questions in
English or do not like speaking English, all the interviews were carried out in
Korean.
3.5 Procedure
Table 3.5 Research schedule
Procedures
Date
Methodology
Pre-survey
March 5th, 2014
Execute and submit the PSCAS
Classroom
observation
March 5th, 2014~
June 20th, 2014
Observe the experiment group
Reflective
journals
March 12th, 2014~
June 4th, 2014
Write and submit journals
Post-survey
June 13th, 2014
Execute and submit the PSCAS
44
Interviews
July 3rd~14th , 2014
Conduct 4 interview sessions
Evaluation
March 5th, 2014~
August 8th, 2014
Collection of data and analysis
complete
3.5.1 General procedure
The study were conducted during one semester (16 weeks for undergraduate
students, the last of which was for final exams) of the academic year 2014,
from March, 5th to June, 20th (see Table 3. 5). The PSCAS was administered
twice for pre- and post-survey until the day before the final exams. For the presurvey, students were asked to complete the questionnaire included a
background questionnaire at home and then submitted them to the researcher
on March 7th, 2014 in the first week. Also, students were complete the same
survey for the post-survey on the last day of 15 weeks. The students started
journal writing in the second week and made one entry per drama activity for
nine weeks.
In the last four months of the study, the researcher observed and videorecorded the students’ participation and level of anxiety in the various drama
activities on a weekly basis from March 5th, 2014 to June 20th, 2014, from the
first week on till the last week (16 weeks in all), two classes a week. Each
class lasted for 50 and 100 min each time. Each time before video-recording,
the students were required to check their attendances so that the researcher
could be sure of the seating in the classroom. In case the students might feel
nervous when video-recorded for the first time, only one video-recording were
used for analyses in the study.
The semi-structured interviews were held on July 3rd, 2014 (after the finalterm exam was over) and conducted in Korean. At the beginning of the
interviews, the researcher informed the students about the purpose of the study
45
and assured them that the information provided would be kept confidential.
Nevertheless, the results would be shared with them. After some small talk, the
researcher started the interviews by asking the students to talk about interview
questions. Each student interview lasted for 45-50 min, which were audiorecorded. Four students were interviewed individually, and the study was
ended.
3.5.2 The procedure of the drama class
The drama class involved two lessons per a week. Each lesson lasted 50 and
100 min. In order to understand of drama in ELT and to apply this in Korean
ELT
effectively,
theories
underpinning
drama
activities,
such
as,
multiculturalism, interactionism, pragmatism, and psycholinguistics were
studied as well as variety kinds of activities and tasks. Drama activities were
explored in terms of using there in a real context. One drama activity was
taught in two or three lessons. Overall 9 drama activities were covered in the
class (See Table3.6).
Table 3.6 Schedule for the drama class
Week
Name of the drama activity
Date/time
1
Scripted role-plays I
March, 5th & 7th
2
Scripted role-plays II-Eco drama
March, 12th & 14th
3
Mime
March, 19th & 21st
4
Situational role-plays I-Still picture
March, 28th
5
Situational role-plays I-Still picture
April, 2nd & 4th
6
Situational role-plays II-An imaginary person in an
April, 9th & 11th
imaginary situation
7
Situational role-plays II-An imaginary person in an
imaginary situation
46
April, 16th & 18th
8
Midterm presentation
April, 25th
9
Simulation
April, 30th & May 2nd
10
Connecting reading texts into drama activities I
May, 7th & 9th
11
Connecting reading texts into drama activities II
May, 16th
12
Three types of reading
May, 21st & 23rd
13
Three types of reading
May, 28th & 30th
14
National Holidays (No classes)
15
Process drama
June, 11th & 13th
16
Final presentation
June, 20th
Students were provided with the basic information about drama to meet there
needs for theoretical information about drama during the first two classes
(three hours total). During these presentations, the students focused on things
they should pay attention to during the drama activity, and the students were
provided with answers to their questions regarding the activity. After the
students were basically informed about drama, the weeks which the groups
were expected to perform the plays were determined randomly.
The researcher was asked to create the groups with which the students would
perform their plays together. The groups were limited to 4-5 students and had
been changed 3 times for 16 weeks. The drama groups made use of the
creative writing technique while preparing their plays. The basic reason was
not restrict the creative and free thinking of the students. After they wrote their
scenarios, a copy of those scenarios was presented to the researcher at the end
of the drama. While the drama groups stuck to the scenarios they wrote, they
also made use of the improvisations depending on the flow of the play. When
and which group will perform their plays were determined by drawing lots or
the instructor among the group. After these, each group continued their work
until it was their turn to perform. In this way, all the groups took part in the
47
drama activity. The conference hall of the school was used for the drama
activity. The classroom contained movable chairs, which enabled enough room
for physical activities. The conference hall, on the other hand, was equipped
with an overhead projector and the stage was available for students’
performances. The researcher monitored the process of all which the plays
were recorded. Every week a performance was done, and after each
performance, all the groups provided the researcher with a reflective journal
mentioning the experiences of the students in the drama activity.
3.6 Data analysis
In sum, there were four types of data collected: (a) the students’ responses to
the PSCAS items; (b) their self-reports in the reflective journals to, and (c)
informants’ responses to the un-structured interview.
The student data were collected and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively
to answer the research questions in this study.
Quantitatively, to answer Research Questions (1) “How do the drama activities
affect students’ anxiety level in speaking in English?”, the results of the survey
were computed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS, version
20.0) in terms of percentage, mean, frequency, and standard deviation to
determine the students’ anxiety levels. When computing these scores, the
researcher reversed the values assigned to different alternatives from ‘Strongly
Disagree’ (1) to ‘Strongly Agree’ (5) of some items. Namely, for items 5, 10,
12, 14, and 15 which expressed comfort in using English, the response
‘Strongly Disagree’ got a value of 5 instead of 1, the response ‘Strongly
Agree’ got a value of 1 instead of 5, and so on. Thus, the total scores of the
PSCAS revealed the respondent’s anxiety at the beginning and end of the
semester. The higher the total scores are, the more anxious the student is.
48
According to Liu and Jackson’s (2008) suggestion (See Table 3.7), since there
are 25 items on the PSCAS, each item having five alternatives with a value of
1–5 assigned to them respectively, a total score of more than 100 implies that
the respondent is a high level anxiety. A total score of 75–100 signifies a
moderate level of anxiety and a total score of less than 75 indicates a low level
of anxiety. A paired samples t-test was conducted to test the significant
differences in anxiety scores before and after the drama activities.
Table 3.7 Liu and Jackson (2008) Anxiety Levels
Score of a PSCAS (25)
100 - 125
75 - 100
75- 0
Anxiety Level
High Anxiety
Moderate Anxiety
Low Anxiety
Note: (Number of items)
In addition, the PSCAS offers a four-dimensional conceptualization of anxiety,
such as communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation,
and comfort in using English (Yaikhong and Usaha, 2012). By calculating the
scores of the items related to each category, the distribution of the four
dimensions of public speaking class anxiety were analyzed in figure to
determine the types of anxiety levels from the students’ responses before and
after the drama activities.
Qualitatively, to answer Research Question (2) “What are the factors that
affect students' anxiety in speaking in English during the drama activities?”,
verbatim transcripts were produced of reflective journals and interviews, and
content analysis was done to identify the theme and categories of responses.
Processing of the data from journals and interviews started with reviewing all
the data and sorting into categories, and transcribing the interview audiotapes.
49
Individual entries with special units of information were sorted and placed into
categories provided meaningful information related to students’ anxiety of
speaking English. All the interview audiotapes were transcribed into word-byword transcripts in Korean. Only those events that were necessary for data
analysis and related to the study would be transcribed. After making sure that
all the data from the interview source were completely transcribed, it was
further translated into English and transferred to approximately 420 entries
with separate units of information. Based on the analyses, some calculations
were carried out, for example, about how many students personally felt
anxious in each drama activity, which is the reason why students’ anxiety
experiences were reduced, and which factor affects students anxiety in
speaking in English so on.
3.7 Summary
This chapter outlined the research design of this study. It first stated the
tworesearch questions of this study. It then gave an account of the research
design. A questionnaire, observations, interviews and reflectivejournals from
participants were the methods used to collect data. This chapter also described
how the research instruments were developed. The results and discussion will
be illustrated in the next chapter.
50
Chapter 4. Result
This section presents the results from the data collected by survey,
participants’ reflective journals, and interviews to answer the two research
questions.
4.1 Results from the survey
The results of pre and post survey public speaking class anxiety elevation
indicate that the drama activity actually affected positively in leveling down
anxiety of the students.
Table 4.1 Results of the comparison of pre and post survey PSCA mean scores
Pre survey
Post survey
N
27
27
Mean
71
64.7
Standard Dev.
15.6
15.16
Note: P<0.05: Result significant.
51
t
2.58
p
.016
As illustrated by Table 4.2, there was a minor decrease (about a score of 7) in
mean scores after the drama activities. Students’ PSCA level seemed to be
alleviated from 71 in the pre survey to 64.7 in the post survey. Both results
indicate that students were categorized as low anxiety based on Liu and
Jackson’s (2008) suggestions. It was seen that there was a significant
difference in favor of post survey between the pre and post survey PSCA mean
scores of the students (t: 2.580;
p (.016) < 0.05).
Figure 4.1
Four dimensions of anxiety levels of pre and post survey PSCA
Note: To determine mean values, the values of rating scores of all the items in the
Comfort in using English aspect were reversed to obtain precise results because they
were all positively worded items as discussed in Chapter III.
52
Moreover, analysis of each kind of anxiety of the PSCAS, as shown in figure
4.1, shows that there was a slight change for all kinds of anxiety as a whole
after the drama activities. According to the interpretation of the results found
in data analysis of the pre survey result of the PSCAS, it was found that the
participants’ test anxiety level was the lowest in its mean score (2.72) amongst
the other levels and followed by communication apprehension (2.76), comfort
in using English (2.88), and fear of negative evaluation (2.93). However, the
post survey result of PSCAS revealed that the scores decreased after the drama
activities. Communication apprehension (0.30) was lower than the other types
of anxiety, followed by fear of negative evaluation (0.29), Test anxiety (0.19),
and comfort in using English (0.15) respectively.
Obviously, the results confirmed that there were traces of public speaking
class anxiety reduction after the drama activities. It could be stated that the
drama activities had made some influence on the students’ anxiety of speaking
in English.
4.2 Results from the reflective journals
The results of the reflective journals indicate that students expressed that the
drama activities alleviated their anxiety in speaking in English from time to
time.
Figure 4.2
Students’ self-reported anxiety in different drama activities reflected in journals
53
Note: Some students did not finish all the 9 journals and thus theirs were considered
invalid for analysis.
Each time in reflective journals subjects should choose between “Yes” or “No”
to the question which asks whether they had felt the speaking anxiety during
the lecture.
As Figure 4.2 shows, a majority of students felt anxious/nervous or a little
anxious/nervous when speaking in English at the very beginning of the drama
activities. However, the students’ anxiety experiences reported at each journal
entry were reduced from time to time after the use of the drama activities.
Comparing with the average students’ anxiety experience percentage of 66.4%,
interestingly, the students’ anxious experiences ranked three times higher than
the average percentage before the midterm presentation and their anxious
experiences ranked three times lower than the average percentage after the
midterm presentation. Moreover, the students expressed positive feelings
54
towards the drama activities over times. It could be stated that students’ selfreported anxiety experiences reduction in reflective journals were also in line
with their levels of anxiety reported on the survey, according to which, the
drama activities affected positively in leveling down anxiety of the students.
The students further claimed that the drama activities yielded positive effects
on their anxiety reduction in speaking in English. Students stated that the
drama activities helped reduce their anxiety with various reasons, in terms of
frequent opportunities of speaking, motivation, self-confidence, interesting
activities, and team spirit. These responses of the students are summarized in
the following chart.
Figure 4.3 Students’ responses, with percentage, regarding of the effects of drama
for decreasing their anxiety
55
Note: 50 out of 241 journal entries were described positively.
With a percentage of 46%, as reflected in Figure 4.3, one of the reasons for
anxiety level reduction stated mostly in the reflective journal was frequent
opportunities of public presentation and speaking practice. Students reported
that drama allowed them to do many performances in public. The students
commented that they were able to become aware of patterns and sequences in
the drama that indicated familiar activities and could help them anticipate what
happened next. Thus, they made improvement on oral presentation skills and
gained confidence to speak English. As indicated in the following students’
journal excerpts:
Actually, I become very used to those ‘presenting’ and ‘showing’ situations
which the drama class includes most. Still I feel a bit anxious, but I am
getting better to talk in front of the class, and I become more confident than
the first week. (6th journal, Yunng).
What I feel ‘accomplished’ is that I have overcome my anxiety a lot
compared with week 1~2 when I was first presenting. Doing lots of
presentations in the drama class, I think my anxiety coming out when
speaking in front of other people started fading away (8th journal, Hyun).
Also, some of students reported that the drama activity provided the
opportunity to practice on speaking in English. They wrote that their speaking
anxiety was reduced and they understood how a speech should be prepared.
This made presentation easy before delivering. The following is an excerpt
from one student journal:
I enjoy the class. Speaking English is always challenged to me but I tried to
say whatever without shameless. Through this activity, I learned the
importance of context. Also, I should speak in English continually; that is, I
could practice my oral ability before presentation. (…) I’m still poor at
56
speaking in English but my fear about it is a little bit reduced (6th journal,
Jang).
The second reason was that 18% of students noted that their speaking anxiety
had reduced because drama enhanced their motivation. The students reported
that the drama activities helped them know that they could learn new things
and helped their motivation. They believed that it helped in learning and
opening their mind. They also indicated that they enjoyed the drama activities
and were motivated to participate in more, as indicated in the following
student journal excerpt:
Unlike before I felt that I become much better to control the nervousness
while I present in front of others. Also, I could experience the enjoyable
moment while I prepare the presentation. Furthermore, it was a good
opportunity not only enjoy with group members but also to learn today’s
social issues from exiting drama activity. (…) therefore, I could feel the
power of drama once again. If I can have another chance to participate the
kind of activity, I will put more effort in performance and I will keep trying
to other many ideas which will be helpful to our group work (Midterm
presentation journal, Yoon)
The third reason was that students with a percentage of 12% reported that their
speaking anxiety was reduced because drama improved their confidence. Most
of the students commented on the confidence that they felt after completing
their performances in the drama activity. They also said that it helped them
improve communication with proper voice modulations and appropriate
gestures. Consequently, drama reduced their speaking anxiety and they gained
more confidence. The following is an excerpt from one student journal:
I feel comfortable now. It is a big change for me. I wrote in my first paper I
felt anxiety in almost every situation when I talk something in English. I am
still not very good at speaking, but not that shy anymore about it. I always
try to do it, and everybody looks like understand to my words. If they looked
confused, I use body languages draw a picture. The best value I learned from
this class is that if we have a confident of myself, we could do everything
57
well (7th journal, Lee).
The fourth reason was that 10% of students noted that their speaking anxiety
was reduced because of interesting activities. Most of students reported that
they often became involved in the drama activities because it was fun and
enjoyable. The students described that they also built up students’ engagement
and motivation to speak, as the following excerpts suggest:
This time, I did not feel any anxiety in the drama activity. Taking with other
students in English was fun and exciting and showing our intelligence in
front of class was fun as well (5th journal, Neui)
The last reason was that the same percentage of students (10%) believed that
their speaking anxiety was reduced because the classes enhanced the spirit of
working in a team. The students were aware that teamwork during the drama
activities was of critical importance for their anxiety, as the following excerpts
suggest:
I’m always nervous when I’m standing in front of many people to present
something. However, I could overcome it with our team members’ help. I
could have courage after seeing their great presentation (4th journal, Yoo).
In conclusion, students repeatedly expressed that the drama activities were
effective for reducing their personal anxiety levels in speaking in English.
With the drama activities, they did many presentations in public and practiced
speaking English repeatedly, developed their motivation, often became
involved in the drama activities, increased their self-confidence and gained
more communication skills. Furthermore, the use of drama activities enhanced
team spirit.
4.2.1. Factors contributing to anxiety
Analysis of anxiety factors given by the students through the reflective
58
journals suggested that there were 8 different factors which they believed had
negatively contributed to their anxiety in speaking in English, namely fear of
stage fright, poor in English, lack of preparation, lack of self-confidence, fear
of failure, afraid of perception of others, introvert/shy, and conflict of opinion.
Table 4.2
Reported factors based on reflective journals data when speaking in English during
the drama activities
Factors
Fear of stage fright
Poor in English(in terms of grammar, pronunciation, etc)
Lack of preparation
Lack of self-confidence
Fear of failure
Afraid of perception of others
Introvert/shy
Conflict of opinion
N(161)
47
34
29
22
14
12
2
1
%
29
21
18
14
9
8
1
1
Note: (Number of the journal entries)
As can be seen in the table above, the majority of the students had fear and
anxiety of speaking in public or with performance on a stage when speaking in
English where 47 out of 161 entries indicated the same response. With a
percentage of 29%, fear of stage fright was placed as the major cause of
anxiety and of speaking English. Most of the students concerned about some
degree of nervous apprehension when preparing to speak or perform in front of
an audience. Some of them commented on the presentation situation, for
example they would try to avoid eye contact with the audiences, even if they
were sure of the drama activities being performed. The students also were
afraid of being singled out to speak English in front of an audience of
individuals when they did not know for the first 1 or 2 weeks especially if they
had lack of experience in speaking in public, as indicated in the following
59
student journal excerpt:
When I should act or doing things in front of audience, I felt anxious.
Whenever I talk before the audience, I feel embarrassed, so I blush. I don’t
like this habit. When I was freshman, I acted play, but it’s long time ago. I
think if get familiar with other classmates, it will be better than now (1st
journal, Shin)
The second factor that could be identified was a lack of English proficiency
with 21% of the students expressing a similar response. Some of them reported
that they were weak in English, some were afraid of making mistakes in terms
of grammar, pronunciation and arranging of words, and also their perceived
lack of knowledge about the drama activities that they were participating. But
the most frightening classroom situation experienced by most of the students
was when their perceived lack of English proficiency was combined with their
lack of unpreparedness of the activities in presentations. These factors
contributed to their level of anxiety. The following is an excerpt from one
student journal:
When I have to explain a story or situation to other students in English, I
sometimes feel frustrated because I can’t express myself well in English.
Therefore I usually need much time for preparing in English but I couldn’t
do this time. I should train harder to improve the fluency and provide precise
expressions (5th journal, Keum)
The next factor was lack of preparation, with 18% of the students writing the
same answer. This was because the students felt anxiety when they entered the
class and not doing the practicing before the presentation, not being able to do
the assignments or not making their script before the scheduled performance.
This factor also involved the anxiety that the students felt when they was given
a
task
on
the
spot
and
were
60
happened
when
when
s omebody
they
were
not
not
prepared
prepared.
Moreover, the lack of time to prepare for the upcoming performance was
pointed out by most of the students. The students were aware that preparation
was the key to attaining success in the drama activities, as the following
excerpts suggest:
When I went in front of people, I was so nervous to present the picture. The
practice is important for me. I did practice normally but it was so lack of
presenting fluently. Everyone has to be person who want to be the best
presenter, if so, the practice will be the best way, all so (3rd journal, Pack)
The fact that we had less time than other groups made me feel anxious and a
little uncomfortable. I feel anxious when I am not well prepared. When I am
not prepared, I lose control of my mind because I start to worry about the
presentation while I am giving the presentation. However, I was not anxious
on Friday at all because I was well-prepared (7th journal, Sun).
The fourth factor was lack of self-confidence with 22 students said that they
believed they did not have the confidence to express themselves in English.
Most of the students indicated that they felt anxious in speaking classes even if
they were well-prepared. They never feel quite sure of themselves and always
think about others better than them when speaking in English. Also, this factor
that caused anxiety when speaking in English is when speaking with people
who are fluent in the language. One of the students wrote that she felt her
confidence was lowered when she had to speak with a foreigner in her group.
There was also one student who wrote that she felt anxious when she had to
speak with people with a higher status as she believes these people are
proficient in their English. The two following excerpts are students’ reflective
journals:
I feel I’m not a good English speaker. Most students in our class were very
good at English speaking, and that makes me feel anxious to speech to them.
61
However, that’s the reason why I take this class, so always; I try to overcome
it (4th journal, Jea).
We had to have a presentation in front of the class again. It was a little
nervous for me because I didn’t feel confident and there were many other
groups who did a great job and felt we were not as well prepared. However,
I tried to talk calmly. I wanted to act as a read the script but I wasn’t
confident enough. I felt unsatisfied with not able to be more confident and
really act. I will try to practice more and be more confident next time! (3rd
journal, Joo)
The fifth factor that the students experienced anxiety before, during or after a
performance because of worry or fear of failure, or about making mistakes
while speaking English (9%). Most of the students said that they feared taking
tests, because test-taking situations would make them anxious about the
negative consequences of getting a bad grade. In addition, they said they
sometimes felt pressured to think that they had to organize their ideas in a
short period of time (e.g., improvisations) while caring about grammar errors
at the same time. Some of them expressed such anxious feelings, as indicated
in the following student journal excerpt:
I was very nervous when I had to perform. I was not sure if I could do well
because I was worried in case I forget my part or have mistakes. Performing
and acting in front of many people was pretty challenging (Midterm journal,
Eun)
The sixth factor that the students were afraid of the perceptions of others when
they spoke in English where 12 out of 161 respondents indicated the same
response. With a percentage of 8 %, most of the students were concerned
about various kinds of evaluative situations in which their knowledge and
performance of English were to be monitored by students around them. They
were conscious about the facial expressions of other students and also of the
62
instructor. They were afraid if their audiences looked bored and confused, and
could not understand the information they were trying to deliver, as the
following excerpts suggest:
I felt anxious when we were up playing; because I worried that maybe the
audience might not understand what our intention was (8th journal, Chun).
Hopefully, I think that the anxiety that I had last time decreased. I felt less
nervous when I performed. However, another anxiety arose; my new anxiety
is that I worry about the response of the audience. In other words, I worried
whether the audience liked our performance or not. The situation that I felt
was right after I finished my performance because after the performance I
can listen to the feedback from the professor and other classmates (2th
journal, Jieu)
An introvert person or feeling shy also contributes as one of the causes of
speaking English anxiety with 2% of the total respondents expressed as shown
below:
Whenever I do presentation I feel really nervous and it stresses me out. I am
quite introvert so I need much courage (3rd journal, Sung).
The last results were similar with conflict of opinion with one respondent said
that she felt anxiety when the group had different opinions against her. One
student noted:
When I am in situations that my opinion is against the team’s opinion, I feel
anxious and I don’t know how to do and what to do. However, through
many drama activities and group activities, I could find that making group
opinion is much more important than only thinking my opinion right (5th
journal, Hye).
It can be concluded that among all of the factors that can be listed from the
response in the reflective journals, the top cause that affected on student’s
anxiety in speaking in English was fear of stage fright during the drama
activities.
63
4. 3 Results from the interviews
The results of analysis of the transcripts in interviews showed that all four
interviewees revealed positive reactions towards the drama activities, in which
the students could engage with their own roles during the drama activity and
kept them speaking in English all the times, even though their post anxiety
survey results were different after the drama activities.
The researcher conducted four individual interviews; 1 high-anxious
(participant D), 1moderate-anxious (participant G), and 2 low-anxious student
(participant J and S) from the post survey results of the PSCA in order to get
in-depth data about speaking anxiety experienced by the students in the drama
classroom,. All the names reported here are pseudonyms. Below is a brief
description of the participants.
Three (participants G, J, and S) were native Korean undergraduate students
majoring in Education. One (participant D) was a native Chinese
undergraduate student, whose major was English language and literature.
Comparing with the pre survey results of the PSCA, the D and G participants
of anxiety levels were increased and the J and S participants of anxiety levels
were decrease in the post survey results of the PSCA. All participants shared
almost the same educational background in terms of the length of learning
English (10 to 12 years), except for differing lengths of studying or living
abroad experiences. Age differences ranged from 19 to 25 years old. Their
own estimate on the ratio of Korean and English use within a week was
approximately 8 (Korean): 2 (English) on average (See the Appendix 5for
detailed descriptions of each participant).
From the findings, the students D and G who felt more anxiety after the drama
64
activities stated that they got stressed and worried very much about their
performing in the activity with their personal anxiety factors such as stage
fright and lack of confidence. However, they expressed positive feelings about
the drama activity because they could have a lot of chances to speak in English
and did not feel bored, as they said:
When I attended in this class, I felt more uncomfortable than the other
English class. The more I thought about the upcoming performance, the
more depressed I become. However, now that I think about the drama class,
it was good for me to have many chances to speak and write in English in
the drama activities (Students D).
I couldn’t enjoy the drama class. There were many good English speakers in
my class and I didn’t know how to do what I thought. Also, (…) I had to
have my own roles and had to speak in English during the drama activities.
These situations made me stressful all the times because I am not good at
English. Afterwards, I felt relaxed and did not feel bored at all in the drama
activity. I still have anxious of speaking in English but I had a lot of practice
of speaking (Student S).
On the other hand, the student J and S who felt much lower anxiety after the
drama activities commented that their anxiety level was reduced because of the
frequent speaking opportunities. Consequently, they increased their selfconfidence. They recounted:
At the first drama activity I feared to speak English and felt nervous, after
practicing many times, now my anxiety was reduced and I became more
confident. Moreover I enjoyed the drama activities a lot (Student J).
The drama activities didn’t help me improve my speaking fluency, but I used
to perform in front of others… so… I felt less anxiety on speaking in
English (Student S).
To sum up, although the students anxiety levels varied after the use of the
drama activity, the students found that the drama method encouraged them to
65
speak in English, in terms of frequent opportunities. This finding was also in
line with students’ self reports in the reflective journals that suggest one of the
effects of drama for decreasing anxiety of the students.
4.3.1 Factors contributing to anxiety
After the analysis of student interviews, the factors of students’ anxiety on
the drama class collected in this study (See Appendix 6). Four students
expressed in the interviews that students’ lack of self confidence to speak in
English was a major source of anxiety about speaking and they felt that other
students are better than mine. The following interview between the
researcher (R) and student (S) illustrates what she experienced in an interview,
R: What do you think are the factors of your nervousness in speaking
English on the drama class?
S J: I am a very extrovert … but I was not confident to speak in English.
R: Do you have any problems with your English?
S J: No… but I felt that other students’ English was better than mine and it
was burden for me to speak English in front of them.
The students were also anxious when they experienced lack of self confidence
in their English Proficiency. Moreover it was the main factor for low-anxiety
student J and S. They seemed to agree upon the anxious feelings associated
with their lack of English proficiency. They expressed a deep concern about
the difficulty communicating in English. Student S said their frustrated
feelings to their lack of English proficiency.
If I could write in the same way in English, I wouldn't feel so nervous (when
asked to clarify my points in class). Even if I am quite familiar with the topic
in my group discussion, I somehow tend to hesitate to comment on that
because I have to think about the proper words, grammar, and
pronunciations at once, and after class I feel so bad about myself (Interview,
student S).
66
In another interview, student D and G who felt more anxiety after the use of
the drama activities explained how the students being afraid to speak in
English and fear of negative evaluation mainly cause anxiety. Their
anxiety happened when they were speaking in front of the class because the
students thought other students would be ridiculing them. As student
D clearly noted:
R: What kind of situations caused anxiety when you were speaking English?
S J: I prepared a lot for the presentation but I was afraid to be in front of
others.
R: Why did you feel like that?
S J: Because I was the only one foreigner in this class and I was not good at
speaking English (…) so I thought that other students ridiculed me when I
made errors.
From the student interviews the obtained results revealed that students’ anxiety
in speaking in English during the drama activities arose from three major
factors. These were lack of self-confidence, low English proficiency, and fear
of negative evaluation. The results of these factors were also in line with selfreports in the reflective journals, according to which, students felt
anxious/nervous or a little anxious/nervous when speaking English in class.
Chapter 5. Discussion
The goal of this research was to investigate the effect of drama on students’
anxiety of speaking English. In this chapter, each research question will be
discussed in light of the results of the study. After summarizing findings by
research questions, a more detailed account of the study's limitations will be
provided as well as avenues for further research.
67
5.1 Research question 1
The first research question asked how the drama activities affect students’
anxiety level in speaking in English. After analyzing the results of the pre and
post survey PSCA, this study confirmed that the drama activities positively
affected on students’ anxiety levels. In terms of anxiety reduction in English
public speaking, there were significant changes in public speaking class
anxiety levels after the drama activities; however, there was a slight reduction
of mean scores after the drama activities (M = 71, 64.7) and the students were
categorized as low anxiety before and after the drama activities based on
means values distribution suggested by Liu & Jackson (2008). Moreover,
means for all kinds of anxiety of the PSCAS decreased after the drama
activities, in terms of communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of
negative evacuation and comfort in using in English. It could be stated that the
results showed that drama was effective in lowering the PSCA levels of the
students who had a high level of PSCA in the pre survey. This finding supports
the studies that suggest the positive impact of process-oriented drama on L2
learners’ anxiety levels (Chan, 1999; Coleman, 2005; Kao, 1994; Phillips,
1999; Piazzoli, 2011; Stern, 1980; Turecek, 1998).
The study found that by analyzing the response of the students taking part in
the drama activities to the questions in the journals and interview form, the
students’ anxiety experiences decreased over time after the use of the drama
activities and they reported that the drama activities yielded positive effects on
their anxiety level reduction in speaking in English. It was seen that the
qualitative findings support the findings obtained via the statistical analysis.
The students further claimed that this reduction of the PSCA of the students
68
may have resulted from the drama learning environments, in which they were
able to do many presentations in public and repeat practices of speaking
English, increase engagement and motivation, gain more communication skills
and enhance their confidence, and enhanced team spirit. Further, they
experienced less anxiety. This can be attributed to the fact that drama
positively affect on students’ anxiety level and enhance self-confidence and
motivations towards speaking English. This finding correlates with Phillips’
(1999) emphasis that some of the areas where the drama method could be
useful.
The Review of the Literature (Chapter II) also supports this conclusion.
Stern’s (1980) study showed that drama helped ESL students felt less nervous
speaking English in front of the group and gained self-confidence. Most of
them enjoyed the drama activities and were motivated to participate in more
(Stern, 1980). Stern also interviewed their teachers and overall they also
perceived the drama activities as helpful in relaxing their students, making
them less nervous, and motivating them. Students in a Korean EFL study also
reported feeling more relaxed and confident speaking English, and showed
significant pretest-posttest gains in English speaking skills as a result of a
drama-based English language program (Coleman, 2005). A study of EFL
students in Singapore by Stinson and Freebody (2006) also indicated that
students felt much more confident speaking English and improved oral
language skills as a result of participating in an English speaking drama
program, and most of them expressed a desire to continue to participate in a
drama program.
Therefore, the results of the present study is critical importance and take a step
further to reduce foreign language classroom anxiety as stated by MacIntyre
and Gardner (1991) that the investigation of the effects on anxiety reduction
69
was crucial and needed if foreign language anxiety was not a stable factor.
5.2 Research question 2
The second research question asked the factors that affect students’ anxiety in
speaking in English during the drama activities. Although the students did not
show a high level of anxiety in the pre and post survey results of the PSCAS,
six major factors that negatively contributed to their anxiety levels in class
were often mentioned in the journals: fear of stage fright, poor in English, lack
of preparation, lack of self-confidence, fear of failure, and afraid of perception
of other. Results from the interview also showed similar findings.
Fear of stage fright was the most cited theme among the students during the
drama activities. The comments suggest that these students agreed that they
felt anxious when they performed an actual speech in class. Sometimes for
some students who are high proficiency levels in English, even a stage was
frightening. This finding correlates with previous studies (Bailey, 1983;
Hilleson, 1996; Jackson, 2002; Price, 1991) that many students appeared to be
anxious when speaking English in the oral English classroom. The students felt
the least/not anxious during pair work and group work but the most anxious
when asked to speak English in class, especially when unprepared.
Another reported factor was lack of English proficiency. 34 students suggested
that anxious caused by poor language ability. They were afraid of making
mistakes in terms of grammar, pronunciation and arranging of words, and also
their perceived lack of knowledge about the drama activities that they were
participating. Sparks and Ganschow (1991) also state that those who have
difficulties with native language systems are liable to experience the similar
problems when they attempt to learn a foreign language and thus make them
anxious. Moreover, most teachers report that low English proficiency is
70
responsible for student reticence (Tusi, 1996).
The third contributing factor was related to lack of preparation. Not doing the
practicing before the presentation was reported by 29 students who indicated
feeling somewhat uncomfortable using English. It was possible that students
had time to rehearse a speech that they had already prepared so their anxiety
was not very high. It may be possible that speech rehearsal was important in
building students’ confidence in public speaking and decreasing their anxiety
level. This supports the study of Menzel and Carrell (1994), which showed that
oral rehearsal contributes to students’ success in their actual speech
performance.
Lack of self-confidence was the fourth contributing factor for students’ anxiety
when speaking in English. 22 students reported that they did not have the
confidence to express themselves in English. They found that they could easily
got anxious when speaking with people who are fluent in the language. The
problem of self-confidence (lack of confidence) experienced by the lower
intermediate learners is likely to be caused by their limitation in foreign
language mastery. This claim is also supported by Pappamihiel (2002) who
argues that learners limited competence in foreign language use, such as lack
of vocabulary, can contribute to their FL anxiety.
The fifth factor that negatively contributed to students’ anxiety in the drama
activities is related to fear of failure. 14 students reported they experienced
anxiety before, during or after a performance because of worry or fear of
failure, or about making mistakes while speaking English. In addition, as a
study conducted by Ohata (2005), task difficulty, time limit, the fear of getting
bad grades and lack of preparation for a test are the other factors that make
learners worried.
The last factor that was frequently reported in the journals was the perceptions of
71
others when speaking in English. This has been supported by Pappamihiel
(2002), where in one of her interview processes, one participant in her study
said that one cause that made him feel anxious was being afraid that the other
students will laugh at him when he says something in a class. This finding is
also similar with the study of Kota Ohata (2005) where in one of his
interviews with five Japanese who studied in the USA, the respondents agreed
that they felt anxious when they thought about the perceptions of others when
they had to speak in English especially because their peers are native speakers
of English.
Thus, from the findings, it can be concluded that English speaking anxiety is
multi-dimensional where it affects students differently depending on the
context of the situation. The students’ anxiety levels vary depending on the
situation. This result is also supported by the study of Pappamihiel (2002)
where she finds that English language anxiety is of a dynamic nature where it
can possibly affect students in many different ways.
Chapter 6. Conclusion
This chapter will include a summary of the conclusion, and a discussion of the
limitations of this study followed by recommendations for the future.
6.1 Conclusion
72
The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of drama activities on
Korean university students’ anxiety in a public speaking context. Furthermore,
the anxiety factors were examined. In the current study, the data were collected
by quantitative and qualitative methods. The level of speaking anxiety
experienced by the students was identified via a questionnaire, and 27 students
were also asked to write reflective journals and interviewed for a deeper
analysis of this anxiety.
According to the findings and discussion in the previous chapter, PSCA levels
were found to be low among the students. In spite of this, some seemed to be
anxious when giving presentations in speaking in English, even when they
were properly prepared for it. Therefore, it is necessary for English teachers to
find a way to help students reduce their anxiety about speaking. In this study,
the drama activity proved to be an effective way to address the problem of
students’ anxiety, by providing a supportive climate in the classroom. These
findings show that the drama activity had a positive effect on students’ anxiety
and students had positive opinions towards it.
The study provides some insights into the factors of students’ anxiety in
speaking in English by clustering their responds. When related responds were
clustered, fear of stage fright, poor in English, lack of preparation, lack of selfconfidence, fear of failure, and afraid of perception of other were categorized
as some issues which were found to be contributing to students’ anxiety in
speaking in English during the drama activities. The results have indicated that
the majority of students have problems with speaking anxiety and the anxiety
causes in fact differ in several ways between these different activities of drama.
Generally, the findings of the present study support the findings of the past
studies conducted within different contexts and settings. Some further research
on what to attribute anxiety provoking situations to and why certain situations
73
cause anxiety may be enriching for future studies.
The identification of factors causing speaking anxiety can be used by teachers
to apply better teaching drama activities which can help lower students’
anxiety during their English language learning in the class.
The results of this study provide some pedagogical implications for teaching.
First, it is important to foster a supportive learning environment in which
students feel safe and willing to take risks, especially for learners who may
have previously had negative learning experiences. Therefore, in order to
make the speaking situation less anxiety-provoking, instructors should tailor
classroom activities to meet students’ affective needs. Second, instructors can
make students realize that in fact making mistakes is normal in speaking. If
students are not afraid of making mistakes, they will not care so much about
losing face. Consequently, they will feel less threatened and more confident
when speaking.
6.2 Limitation
Based on the findings and conclusion of this study, the study has a number of
limitations. The number of participants in this study was limited to only 27
female undergraduate students from the central part of Korea. Therefore, more
participants from other parts of Korea and from other levels of education are
needed so as to increase the generalizability of the research results. However,
there may be some parts of the findings which can be used as reference to deal
with students’ anxiety in ELT. In addition, the class in the present research
was observed and recorded with only one camcorder. Through the videorecorded observations conducted over the term partially compensated for this,
it would have been better for the researcher to observe the class throughout the
74
term for a better understanding of the changes in students’ anxiety in different
classroom activities. This would have also helped reduce student anxiety
resulting from camcorders and make them adapt to the existence of the
equipment so that more of their natural behavior could have been recorded. It
would also have been better to record the class with more camcorders to better
identify to what degree each student remained anxious in various drama
activities. Further,
6.3 Recommendations for Future Research
The following recommendations are presented for future research.
First of all, more drama activities should be integrated into the speaking
curriculum because, as our study demonstrates, these activities bring variety
and enthusiasm to lessons.
Second, further research on the effects of drama in ELT classes on motivation,
learner autonomy, self-esteem or self-efficacy could be conducted.
Third, a comparative study to reduce speaking anxiety using the drama
activities between a control group and an experimental group should be
conducted.
Finally, as this study investigated the effect of drama activities and factors
contributing to speaking anxiety, further research on the other methods or
techniques that students use to manage their anxiety is needed in order to find
ways to help students cope with their anxiety. Thus, this will lead to effective
English speaking among Korean students in the long run.
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Appendix A
Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS)
:Name
:Date
DIRECTIONS: Read the following statements and place a check in the box
under the column which fits your opinion of yourself. Work quickly, but be
sure to consider each item individually. There are no right or wrong answers.
Ite Statement
m
No.
Opinion
(5)
(4)
Strongl Agree
y
79
(3)
(2)
Undec Disag
ided
ree
(1)
Stron
gly
Agree
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
I never feel quite sure of
myself while I amspeaking
English.
I tremble when knowing
that I am goingtobe called
on to speak English.
I start to panic when I have
to speak English without a
preparation in advance.
In a speaking class, I can
get so nervous I forget
things I know.
I feel confident while I am
speaking English.
I feel very self-conscious
while speaking English in
front of other students.
I get nervous and confused
when I am speaking
English.
I am afraid that other
students will laugh at me
while I am speaking
English.
I get so nervous when the
language teacher asks me to
speak English which I have
prepared in advance.
I have no fear of speaking
English.
I can feel my heart
pounding when I am going
to be called on.
I feel relaxed while
speaking English.
It embarrasses me to
volunteer to go out first to
80
Disag
ree
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
speak English.
I face the prospect of
speaking English with
confidence.
I enjoy the experience of
speaking
English.
The more speaking tests I
have, the more confused I
get.
Certain parts of my body
feel very tense and rigid
while speaking English.
I feel anxious while waiting
to speak
English.
I want to speak less because
I feel shy while speaking
English.
I dislike using my voice and
body expressively while
speaking English.
I have trouble to coordinate
my
movements
while
speaking English.
I find it hard to look the
audience in my eyes while
speaking English.
Even if I am very wellprepared I feel anxious
about speaking English.
I keep thinking that other
students are
better at speaking English
than I.
I always feel that the other
students speak English
better than I do.
81
Background Questionnaire
The questions below are for research purposes only, and your individual
answers will not be made available to anyone. Please answer the following
questions or check the proper answers.
Name:___________________________ Date:_______________
1. Your gender: Male / Female
2. Your age: years old
3. Country of birth:
4. Ethnicity:
5. What are you in school? (Circle one):
Freshman
Sophomore
Junior
Senior
82
Graduate
Student
Other
6. What is your major?
_____________________________________________
7. What is your native language?
_____________________________________
8. What language(s) do you speak at home?
_______________________________________________________________
9. If more than one, with whom do you speak each of these languages?
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
10. In what language(s) did you receive the majority of your precollege
education?
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
11. If more than one, please give the approximate number of years for each
language.
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
12. Have you ever lived in a situation where you were exposed to a language
other than your native language (e.g. by living in a multilingual community;
visiting a community for purposes of study abroad or work; exposure through
family members; traveling to, etc.)
Circle one: Yes / No
13. If Yes, please give details below. If more than three, list others on the
83
bottom of this page.
Experience 1
Experience 2
Experience 3
Country/Region
Language
Purpose
From
when
to
when
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
14. In the boxes below, Self-rate your language ability in each of the languages
that you know. Use the following rating: 1) Poor, 2) Good, 3) Very good, 4)
Native/Nativelike.
How many years (if any) have you studied this language in a formal school
setting?
Language
Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Number of
years
of
study
English
15. If you have taken TOEFL before, please write your TOEFL scores below:
Reading
Listening
Writhing/TWE
84
Structure/Grammar Speaking/TSE
Other:__________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
16. Why are you taking Drama class? Please explain your specific reasons.
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
Thank you for your cooperation.
Appendix B
Interview Questions
1. How would you describe your personality? Are you an introvert or an
extrovert?
2. How do you feel about speaking in English in general?
3. How did you feel about speaking in English during the drama activities?
4. Have you ever feel anxiety when you speak in English in general? Please
explain.
5. Did you personally have anxiety when you speak in English in the drama
class?
6. In what situations did you feel anxious speaking in English during the
drama activities?
7. What kind of factors did you affect your anxiety in speaking in English
during the drama activities?
85
① Different types of drama
② Communication apprehension(e.g. difficulty in understanding the
teacher’s instruction, lack of preparation, and lack of confidence)
③ Text anxiety(e.g. performance evaluation stemming a fear of failing)
④ Fear of negative evaluation(e.g. fear of correction and fear of making
mistakes)
⑤ What else/other made you anxious in speaking in English during the
drama activities?
8. Would you want to participate in another drama class in the future? Yes/No
Why and why not?
9. Is there anything else you’d to say about the drama class and your
experience?
Appendix C
Drama Reflective Journal
:Name
:Date
Please share with me what you experience in the drama course. I would like to
listen to you. (Write down at least 2 pages.)
Overall lesson
① How did you like the lesson?
-Waswhatyou learnedfromthe lesson new to you?
-Was it useful (in practice, in my studies, in my life)?
② What parts of the lesson did you like or enjoy most? And least? And
Why?
Drama activity
③ How did you think (feel) about the drama activity we did today? And
86
why?
-Was what we did too easy or too difficult?
-What are the advantages and disadvantages of the activity?
④ How did you participate in the drama activity? And why?
-Were there any problems with you or your group?
-What went well? What went not so well?
-How did you resolve them?
-If you were faced with the same problem again, would you do
anything differently?
Students’ anxiety
⑤ Did you personally have anxiety in the drama activity?
-In what situations did you feel anxious? And why?
Appendix D
PSCAS items with numbers of students selecting each alternative (N=27)
SA* A
N
D
SDBoth StrongSDMean
1. I never feel quite sure of myself while I am speaking
English.
(pre)
1
7
5
13
1
2.78
1.01
(post)
1
5
11
8
2
2.81
0.96
2. I tremble when knowing that I am going to be called on
to speak English.
(pre)
1
7
6
10
3
2.7
1.1
(post)
1
7
6
10
3
2.74
1.1
3. I start to panic when I have to speak English without a
preparation in advance.
(pre)
2
6
3
13
3
2.67
1.14
(post)
1
6
6
10
4
2.63
1.11
4. In a speaking class, I can get so nervous I forget things I
know.
(pre)
2
7
5
12
1
2.89
1.09
(post)
1
5
7
13
2
2.56
0.89
5. I feel confident while I am speaking English.
(pre)
1
8
9
8
1
3
1.04
87
(post)
3
7
12
5
1
6. I feel very self-conscious while speaking English in
front of other students.
(pre)
1
17
4
4
1
(post)
1
14
5
7
0
7. I get nervous and confused when I am speaking English.
(pre)
1
10
4
10
2
(post)
1
2
8
14
2
8. I am afraid that other students will laugh at me while I
am speaking English.
(pre)
2
4
3
14
4
(post)
0
4
3
12
8
9. I get so nervous when the language teacher asks me to
speak English which I have prepared in advance.
(pre)
1
4
5
12
5
(post)
0
4
5
13
5
10. I have no fear of speaking English.
(pre)
1
9
2
11
4
(post)
0
11
4
9
3
11. I can feel my heart pounding when I am going to be
called on.
(pre)
3
9
7
8
0
(post)
1
6
11
8
1
12. I feel relaxed while speaking English.
(pre)
1
3
10
9
4
(post)
2
6
10
7
2
13. It embarrasses me to volunteer to go out first to speak
English.
(pre)
1
15
7
4
0
(post)
1
3
11
10
2
14. I face the prospect of speaking English with
confidence.
(pre)
2
7
12
6
0
(post)
1
8
15
2
1
15. I enjoy the experience of speaking English.
(pre)
8
14
4
1
0
(post)
8
11
6
2
0
16. The more speaking tests I have, the more confused I
get.
88
2.78
1.01
3.48
3.33
0.94
0.92
2.93
2.48
1.11
0.89
2.48
2.07
1.16
1.04
2.41
2.3
1.08
0.95
3.3
3.07
1.2
1.11
3.26
2.93
1.02
0.92
3.37
2.96
1.04
1.06
3.48
2.74
0.8
0.94
2.81
2.78
0.88
0.8
1.93
2.07
0.78
0.92
(pre)
0
6
9
10
2
2.7
(post)
0
3
12
10
2
2.59
17. Certain parts of my body feel very tense and rigid
while speaking English.
(pre)
1
3
12
11
2
2.63
(post)
1
6
5
13
2
2.67
18. I feel anxious while waiting to speak English.
(pre)
1
14
7
5
0
3.33
(post)
2
6
6
10
3
2.78
19. I want to speak less because I feel shy while speaking
English.
(pre)
1
4
7
13
2
2.59
(post)
1
3
3
14
6
2.22
20. I dislike using my voice and body expressively while
speaking English.
(pre)
0
2
3
16
6
2.04
(post)
1
1
2
15
8
1.96
21. I have trouble to coordinate my movements while
speaking English.
(pre)
0
2
5
17
3
2.3
(post)
0
0
4
18
5
1.96
22. I find it hard to look the audience in my eyes while
speaking English.
(pre)
0
8
6
10
3
2.7
(post)
0
1
6
15
6
2.07
23. Even if I am very well-prepared I feel anxious about
speaking English.
(pre)
3
6
9
6
3
3
(post)
1
3
5
13
5
2.33
24. I keep thinking that other students are better at
speaking English than I.
(pre)
3
10
6
7
1
3.26
(post)
3
6
10
5
3
3.04
25. I always feel that the other students speak English
better than I do.
(pre)
2
9
5
8
3
2.96
(post)
2
7
5
10
3
2.81
*SA ->Strongly agree; A -> Agree; N -> Neither; D -> Disagree;
>Strongly Disagree.
89
0.91
0.8
0.93
1.04
0.88
1.15
0.97
1.05
0.81
0.94
0.82
0.59
1.03
0.78
1.18
1.04
1.1
1.16
1.19
1.18
SD -
Appendix E
Student Profiles
Participant J:
She is an international undergraduate senior student majoring in English
language and literature and she came to the Korea after she dropped out of a
local university in China 5 years ago. While in her high-school days, she never
had an English tutor who was an American. She said she had no chance to
speak in English in her daily life until she came to Korea. She had a lot of
foreigner friends who speak in English and had conversations with her
roommate or friends for a year and half. After finishing 10-month Korean
language education center 4 years ago, her current situation is that she speaks
quite little in English. Her own estimate on the speaking ratio of Korean and
English within a week was approximately 8 (Korean): 2 (English). With the
moderate anxiety level of 84 on the pre-survey, she had the highest anxiety
90
level of 106 on the post-survey in the drama class.
Participant D:
She was an undergraduate senior student majoring in Physical Education and
minored in English language and literature. She had experiences abroad about
a year including attending an intensive English program in Philippines (2month). She said she enrolled in this class because she wanted to improve her
English skills, especially ‘speaking’ and ‘reading’ skills. Her current use of
English in the daily situations seems to be limited only to her classes, but she
uses every weekend for her speaking practice with her native conversation
partner (2 to 4 hours). She estimated that his use of English in the current
situation compared to that of Korean would be 7 (Korean): 3 (English).She not
only had the moderate anxiety score of 80 on the pre-survey but also the
moderate anxiety score of 85 on the post-survey.
Participant E:
She was an undergraduate student majoring in Division of Education and
minored in English language and literature, and this was her third semester in a
university. She said that English classes had taught by native English teachers
since she started studying English and she loved to study English and liked to
have conversations with friends even she did not have any studying or living
abroad experiences. While studying in a foreign language high school for 3
years she had chance to use English, but she experienced fear of speaking in
English with friends with a higher proficiency. She lost her confidence and she
always concerns about her low English proficiency. Her current situation is
that she has a lot of American friends but he speaks quite little in English.
Thus, his estimate of how much he uses Korean vs. English in a week was 8
91
(Korean): 2 (English). With the moderate anxiety level of 78 on the pre-survey,
she lowered the anxiety level of 59 on the post-survey after the drama
activities.
Participant G:
She had been an undergraduate student majoring in Education for three years
including double majoring in English language and literature (2 years). After
high school, she went to a private English Institution to prepare TOEFL scores
for a year more while studying daytime. She did not have any experiences of
traveling or living in an English Speaking Country. She said she had almost no
chance to speak in English except English classes she attended in a university.
Her daily use of English speaking was limited to approximately 10 to
20minutes on average in classes but instead he spends 1 to 2 hours per day on
reading and writing in English for assignments. His estimated ratio of English
use (speaking) vs. Korean was 8 (Korean): 2 (English). She documented a
score of 99(moderate anxiety level) for her pre-survey, while her post-survey
score was 65 (low anxiety level).
92
Appendix F
Data Analysis from interviewers
No. Factors
Frequency
Stude Stude
nt D
nt G
1
I do not have
3
enough practice
of speaking
2
I do not know
1
how to do what I
think
3
Lack of self- 1
5
confidence
for
speaking English
4
Lack of English
5
proficiency
(vocabulary,
grammar,
and
pronunciation
etc.)
93
Stude
nt J
4
Stude
nt S
Tot
al
7
1
5
2
13
4
9
5
6
7
8
Being afraid of
making mistakes
To speak in front
of others
Potential
reaction of the
other students on
my
speaking
performance
Introvert
Total
3
3
3
3
10
4
2
1
4
1
4
1
10
3
20
94
11
9