Overcoming Speech Anxiety in the Classroom

Sammanfattning: Speech anxiety is an issue that persists and presents itself innumerably in schools, especially affecting students who learning English either as their second language or as a foreign language. Speaking anxiety may stem from different sources and affect each individual student differently. The research question that is key to this research is “How can teachers support students who are struggling with speech anxiety?”The research for this thesis has been done through the use a qualitative interview with two secondary school teachers in Lund. The interview was structured after a semi-structured style to allow for guided questions and openness of any unexpected questions and answers during the interview process.The results of this research is that that tackling speaking anxiety in the classroom is no easy feat, although, from the literature and interview content it has been made clear that for a teacher to be successful in supporting their students, being prepared for possible difficulties, composed for sudden changes to lesson plans, and ready to adapt assignments where speaking is involved in order to allow students to be most comfortable and given their utmost honest performance while speaking in front of others.