An investigation of the relationship between high school students' attitudes towards English lesson, English speaking anxiety and participation in English lesson

Attitude has an important place in learning a foreign language. It is known that a positive attitude towards a foreign language has a significant impact on language learning. It is clearly seen that many factors have a great influence on foreign language learning and teaching. The most important of these factors is the anxiety of success. It has been emphasised that anxiety affects people negatively in general and has the effect of preventing learning in many fields, especially language, to a certain extent. Nowadays, this situation is frequently examined in research on the affective aspects of foreign language learning. Many studies shows that anxiety negatively affects language learning and speaking, which is one of the basic skills. The general purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between high school students' attitudes towards English class, their anxiety about speaking English and their participation in English class. This research is a study using quantitative data. It is designed in the form of relational design from methodological designs. The population of the research consists of high schools in Elazığ province. The research was applied directly on the population and necessary explanations were made to the students during the application of the scale. The scales were distributed to 6 educational institutions providing education at high school level and feedbacks were received from high schools. The scales returned from the students participating in the research were examined and evaluated, and the scales suitable for the research were included in the scope of the research. The study population of the research consists of students determined by stratified and random sampling methods, covering Anatolian, Science and Vocational High Schools studying in Elazığ province in the fall and spring semesters of the 2023-2024 academic year. The study was conducted with a total of 968 students. A scale was used as a data collection tool in the study. "High School Students' Attitude Scale Towards English Lesson", "English Speaking Anxiety Scale" and "English Lesson Participation Scale" were used. The data obtained as a result of the application of the scale was analysed using SPSS 24.0 statistical programme. The data set showed normal distribution, t-test, Anova Test, Pearson correlation analysis were applied. The English Lesson Attitude and English speaking anxiety scores of the Students Participating in the Research are at the Undecided level. A significant negative relationship was determined between the students' perception of English lesson attitude and English speaking anxiety, and a positive significant relationship between their perception of participation in English lesson. Regarding their attitudes towards the English course, Science and Anatolian High School students with high GPA, female students who take private English lessons, have low and medium income, and whose parents have high school, undergraduate and graduate education have higher attitudes towards the English course and are more positive. Regarding their concerns about the English course, it was determined that Science High School students with a high GPA, students who took private English lessons, students with high income, and parents with undergraduate and graduate education levels had lower levels of anxiety towards the English course. Regarding their participation in English lessons, it was determined that Anatolian and Science High School students with high GPA, students who took private English lessons, low and middle income groups, parents with undergraduate and graduate education levels, and female students had higher participation in English lessons. It was determined that there were studies with similar results across the research results and accordingly, participation in English class and attitude towards English class affected each other positively. It was determined that attitudes towards English predicted students' participation in class, and speaking anxiety negatively affected class participation at a significant level. This shows that attitude is an important variable in explaining students' participation in class. Keywords: High school students, English language course, attitude, anxiety, class participation