Exploring students’ speaking anxiety at Akademi Laut Malaysia / Shamsul Rizal Mohd Rosedi...[et al.]

This paper explores the speaking anxiety of 106 first year nautical and marine
engineering cadets at the Akademi Laut Malaysia (ALAM). As the English language is the
language of instruction in the maritime education and training institutions, it creates
inconvenience to students in coping with the language requirements and classroom
instructions. The promulgation of English as the working language of the maritime industry
has increased this anxiety even more. Ironically, in both classrooms and on board merchant
ships, students must be able to communicate effectively especially in communicating
essential information for the safety of operations. Hence, it is worthwhile to explore the
possibility of speaking anxiety in both nautical and marine engineering classrooms for the
benefit of industry. A quantitative survey, adapted from Horwitz’s (1986) Foreign Language
Anxiety Scale (FLAS) was administered on respondents and the data collected were then
analysed by SPSS version 22 for further analysis and understanding. The results of this
study show that there is a significant level of speaking anxiety among the survey
respondents which needs be addressed effectively.