Relationship between Speaking Anxiety and Self-Efficacy among Elementary Students in Second Language Classrooms in Malaysia

Learning English as a second language has been long implemented in Malaysia since post-independence in 1967. However, many research findings have established that language anxiety remains as an obstacle, which hinders students from mastering English in their second language classrooms. This paper presents the exploration on the relationship between English speaking anxiety and self-efficacy among 289 elementary school students from the population of 1080 students in the zone of Nusajaya, Johor, Malaysia. The results were compared across different academic achievers and genders. A modified version of FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale) by Horwitzs and Cope (1986) and English Speaking Self Efficacy (ESSE) which was adapted and adopted from QESE by Wang (2013) were used as the research instruments. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents to assess their self-perception on speaking anxiety and self-efficacy. The findings realized the existence of a significant moderate negative relationship between English language speaking anxiety and self-efficacy. No significant difference between genders in the level of speaking anxiety was found but there were significant differences among different academic achievers in the level of speaking anxiety.