A study on the impact of video blogs in reducing ESL learners public speaking anxiety

Noor Alhusna Madzlan

Abstract

Speaking ability is one of the integral language components in English language acquisition. This ability is a challenging one to master for ESL learners as it involves several linguistic and non-linguistic features in presenting ideas and it is frequently associated with anxiety. Public speaking anxiety is a common issue faced by students learning a second language. Feelings such as stage frights and nervousness could contribute to their anxiety in communicating using the target language. Other than that, the classroom environment, among other factors such as instructor and peer pressure, could also pose as threats for students particularly in public speaking settings. The present study aims to investigate whether public speaking anxiety can be alleviated through the use of an online platform, video blogs. Creation of personal video blogs could potentially help learners by providing a safe and non-threatening learning environment in practising their public speaking skills. This study also aims to identify the factors that influence participants’ use video blogs as a public speaking platform. A mixed-method approach is designed to examine the effects of using video blogs. A set of questionnaire and semi-structured interview were administered to groups of tertiary level ESL learners. Quantitative and qualitative approaches to data analysis were carried out and results indicate that the use of video blogs do bring significant improvement in reducing public speaking anxiety among ESL learners.

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