STUDENTS’ PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY IN ENGLISH CLASSROOM AT THE GRADE TWO OF SMPN 3 MEDAN

Anxiety to speak is a fear of negative feelings felt by individuals in communicating, usually in the form of feelings of tension, nervousness or panic in communicating. This study was aimed to determine the level of anxiety of students in second grade English class at SMPN 3 Medan and the factors that influence students' public speaking anxiety in second grade English class at SMPN 3 Medan. This study used a case study research design with a qualitative approach. Data was collected through observation, questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaire used is the FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale) questionnaire. The results of this study indicated that the highest level of student anxiety is in the "Anxious" category of 79% of 28 students. Furthermore, the "high" anxiety level is 14% and 7% is the "moderate" anxiety level. The results of the questionnaire and interviews showed that there were three factors caused the students’ anxiety based on (Horwitz et al., 1986) theory, they are communication anxiety, where students could not speak in English because they have weak experience about English, fear of negative evaluation, where the students afraid if the teacher and their friends will laugh when the students making a mistake, test anxiety, where the student feel anxiety because they have to do a test given by the teacher. This research showed that the role of the teacher is very important. Students and teachers can build a positive classroom atmosphere to overcome student anxiety.