Interactive effects of English-speaking anxiety and strategy use on oral English test performance of high- and low-proficient Chinese university EFL learners

Abstract

This study investigated the interactive effects of English-speaking anxiety and strategy use on oral English test performance of high- and low-proficient Chinese university EFL learners. In total, 1092 first-year undergraduates answered the English-speaking Anxiety Scale (ESAS), the Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) and other questionnaires, and took the English-speaking test. Based on test scores, data gathered from 178 low- and 214 high-proficient students were used in the study. The results were: (1) the low-proficient students were significantly more apprehensive of negative evaluation and speech communication than their high-proficient counterparts. Meanwhile, they deployed social affective, fluency-oriented, meaning-negotiating, and message reduction and alteration strategies significantly less frequently while message abandonment strategies, nonverbal strategies and strategies of attempting to think in English significantly more often; (2) ESAS and OCSI scales were significantly interrelated for both groups, and (3) both ESAS and OCSI were good predictors for English-speaking test performance for both groups.

Keywords

• speaking anxiety
• strategy use
• effect
• proficiency
• test performance