Özet:

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors that cause speaking anxiety in English language learners. The participants of this case study were randomly selected 50 Turkish university students who are at the pre-intermediate language proficiency level of English at the Preparatory School of Istanbul Aydın University. Two main data collection instruments were used in this study. The first data collection instrument was a Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, which was developed by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986). The second data collection instrument was the focus group interviews. Using the item categorization of the Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, the data of the study were analysed in four sections: self-perceived proficiency, self-comparison to others and competitiveness, fear of performance in test situation and learners' beliefs about making mistakes in English class. The findings on self-perceived proficiency showed that although the majority of the students have self-confidence and feel relaxed about speaking English in the class, there are a few students who have self-perceived low-level ability in learning a foreign language. We may conclude that being confident and feelings of comfort during speaking in foreign language are significant factors in speaking. With regard to the self-comparison to others and competitiveness category, we realized that more than half of the students don't think of others’ competence during the language learning process, while the rest of them compare themselves with the other students in the class. Those students stated that they don't get anxious about the English language examinations because they always prepare themselves for the examinations in advance on daily-basis. In addition, they mentioned that studying hard at home and also listening to the teacher in the class help them to become aware of the topics they are not good at. Moreover, they pointed out that their teacher is very good and that is why there is no need to get nervous about the examination time. But we cannot deny those learners who do have problems in test situation even though they represent the minority of the participants. Regarding the learners' beliefs about making mistakes in English class, we concluded that all of the students don't feel anxious about making mistakes in the English class. 

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