Exploring the Influence of Teacher Immediacy Behaviors on Speaking Anxiety in ELT Classrooms

Abstract

Speaking anxiety is one of the most intractable problems faced by the learners of English as a foreign or second language and the learners at the university level are not an exception in the case of Pakistan. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of teacher immediacy (verbal and nonverbal cues of warmth, approachability, and closeness) on speaking anxiety of undergraduate students studying English Language Teaching (ELT) at the public sector universities of Pakistan. A quantitative, correlational research design was used to explore the statistical relationship between the two variables, as there was no manipulation of these variables. Convenience sampling was used to select about 200 students for the study. The data collected was by means of a self-administered questionnaire consisting of an adapted Teacher Immediacy Scale and a modified Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, which were tested for in advance and proven to be reliable by Cronbach's alpha. SPSS software was used for descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and regression analysis in order to find out the magnitude of the relationship between teacher immediacy and speaking anxiety, direction of the relationship, and predictive power of teacher immediacy and speaking anxiety. The results show that there is a highly negative correlation between the two variables; that is, higher level of teacher immediacy is linked to lower level of speaking anxiety. The study provides implications for teacher education, classroom communication and the future study of affective variables in language learning environments.