The Impact of Collaborative Learning on Speaking Anxiety Among Foreign Language Learners in Online and Face-to-Face Environments

Introduction

Speaking is considered one of the most important language skills. The main reason why this skill is so important is that it is the most efficient method to convey meaning, and thus, it is considered the primary means of communication (Sudarmo, 2021). However, learning speaking skills can be much more complicated since it consists of various components such as phonetic, phonologic, lexical, and pragmatic knowledge. A great speaker not only knows what to speak and when to speak, but he is also aware of the delivery of the structures and how they are socially appropriate. Since speaking is a complex skill that requires the ability to produce the language within a context, mastery of it is crucial in language learning. Therefore, most language learners measure their competency through speaking abilities and performance (Burns & Goh, 2012). In other words, speaking well is believed to be a concrete sign of language learning. Another reason is that learners can build an understanding of the foreign culture and language through interaction since the speech includes the message and some cultural and contextual clues based on the way the speech is delivered. Finally, even though most language teachers are aware of the importance of speaking and try to follow a communicative approach in language teaching, students usually master the reading and listening skills before speaking which is a concrete sign of how challenging it is to teach and acquire.

On the other hand, foreign language learners are affected by both cognitive and affective factors when it comes to speaking. One of the most problematic affective factors is believed to be speaking anxiety since it is also the most frequently observed in an EFL classroom. Anxiety is mostly seen in language classrooms because learners are expected to be cognitively active and ready to produce an output. These complex mental procedures challenge learners to become more competent speakers and trigger feelings like fear and panic (Horwitz et al., 1986). Along with learners' cognitive performance, the capacity to comprehend and learn the language will also decrease as this feeling mostly acts as a barrier leading learners to failure (Wörde, 2003). However, even though speaking anxiety is a common research topic that attracts researchers, there is still no precise way to solve this problem that is frequently encountered in EFL classrooms.