Communication apprehension of students in the ESL classroom / Suzilla Jamari

This study attempted to investigate the communication apprehension of students in the
ESL classroom. The participants consisted of 31 Bachelor of Science (Hons) Tourism
Management at UiTM Melaka, who are taking BEL492 (Presentation Skills) course.
Of 31 students, 9 students are male and 22 students are female. McCroskey’s (1982)
Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) modified version was
utilized in collecting the data about communication apprehension among the students.
Variables like language achievement and gender were examined. Descriptiveanalyses,
Gamma-test, and independent t-test were used to find out the relationships.
The findings showed that speech activity causes the highest communication
apprehension among the students; followed by meeting, conversation, and group
discussion activities. There were no significant influences of language achievement
and gender on students’ communication apprehension. Main implications derived
from this study include finding out the communication activities that cause the highest
communication apprehension to work on them; and giving students more
opportunities to involve in communication activities in ESL classroom to give
students the familiarity with the target language. For future research, it is
recommended that this topic is measured with larger group of participants, wider
communication area and scope of study, and collaborate with other instruments to find
out more information on students communication apprehension.