Comparison of a Videoconferencing Intervention’s Effects on Students’ English-Speaking Anxiety

This study reports on an action research aimed at alleviating students' speaking anxiety. The purpose of this study is to find out how much anxiety students experience while speaking English and explore if the use of synchronous computer mediated communication platforms such as videoconferencing services reduce students' speaking anxiety. We compared the effects of videoconferencing between an improvisation group and a script group. A total of thirty-four Japanese high school students who were separated into the two groups participated in the study. Data were collected using an eight-item questionnaire before and after the twenty video conferences. The results demonstrated that the students experienced high levels of English-speaking anxiety. The video conferences alone had a statistically significant effect on reducing the students' speaking anxiety. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the improvisation group and script group. These results suggest that repeated speaking practice may help alleviate students' speaking anxiety.