Voices in peril: understanding English public speaking anxiety among university students in Bangladesh

Abstract

Public speaking is a less practiced issue in Bangladesh as it is not included in academic curricula in any tier of education. The fear of public speaking, especially in English, is common among many Bangladeshi university students. To better understand this matter, 19 in-depth interviews and four focus group discussions were carried out among public and private university students in Bangladesh, keeping gender, class, urban, rural, and regional variation in mind. This research integrates Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Bourdieu’s concept of linguistic capital to examine how socio-cultural, institutional, and psycholinguistic factors influence public speaking anxiety among university students in Bangladesh. The findings show that educational institutions and socio-cultural issues impact students’ public speaking skills at the university level. In addition, psycholinguistic factors such as negative self-perception and linguistic fluency are the most common causes of fear of public speaking in English. The findings implicate that enhancing communication education across all levels and fostering supportive environments could mitigate this anxiety, potentially improving students’ academic and professional prospects. Further research engaging a wider population is necessary for policy formulation, which might facilitate the culture of public speaking among students of all levels of education.

Keywords

• Bangladesh
• public speaking anxiety
• psycholinguistics
• socio-cultural barriers
• university student
• Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani, English Language Translation Department, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, Iran