Public Speaking Strategies for Improving English Speaking Skills in the EFL College Context

This paper aims to analyze the perceptions of Korean students’ public speaking anxiety (PSA) and suggest some applicable strategies for enhancing speaking skills in the EFL context. To do this, a survey on PSA was conducted, targeting 34 low-level students for G1 and 83 high-level students for G2 enrolled in an “English Conversation Class”. In-depth interviews were conducted with twelve students among enrolled students. Data was analyzed utilizing SPSS 22.0. The results were as follows. Students were more anxious in the pre-speech phase than during-speech phase. Overall, regardless of gender and English proficiency level, students feel nervous and anxious in PS. In addition, some effective and applicable strategies for improving English speaking skills were suggested; eliciting small group or individual students to speak freely in front of the class on certain familiar topics, a more relaxed environment ushered in by the instructor, evading a strong discouragement of mocking peers when they make mistakes, more opportunity to speak in front of students in building close rapport, and impromptu speech activities encouraging high-level students, and utilizing familiar chunks for speaking skills. Finally, implications for building up the value of speech communication skills were highly presented for better PS instruction.