Determining Ecuadorian Undergraduate English Polytechnic Students’ Speaking Anxiety While Making Presentations in Virtual Environments During COVID-19

Using oral presentations in foreign language classrooms is a widespread practice. This form of oral exercise entails generating speaking anxiety in students. This paper aimed to identify the anxiety levels experienced when learners do in-class presentations. A mixed-methods design was adopted. The Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) was utilized for the quantitative phase. Eight open-ended questions were used for the qualitative phase. One hundred thirty-two students of English registered at a public polytechnic university in Ecuador took part in the quantitative phase of the study. Twelve of them took part in the interviews. The data were analyzed using Factor Analysis which related three sources of anxiety “Communication apprehension,” “Apprehension to peer’s reactions,” and “Apprehension during the presentations.” The majority of participants were found to experience high levels of anxiety. Several implications stem from this study. Raising awareness of speaking anxiety among language department administrators and teachers is one.