A comparison of Turkish efl students' speaking anxiety in the classrooms of native and non-native instructors

In this study, L1 Turkish EFL students' speaking anxiety in native and non- native instructors' classroom will be compared. Speaking is one of the critical skills in the teaching and learning process in second language acquisition and since it is based on the production of language, it is one of the most compelling ones for students. There are some causes which may negatively affect the process and anxiety is one of those factors, specifically in that it demotivates learners in the classroom environment: thus, this research aims to identify to the sources of speaking anxiety of L1 Turkish EFL students. This study was conducted at three universities in Ankara, the data was collected through a questionnaire and adapted from the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (hereafter referred to as FLCAS), which was developed by Horwitz et al. (1986). The results show that there is no statistically significant difference between the learners taught by native and non-native instructors on the basis of learner's gender and age. However, the length of learning was found to be effective in the comparison of the anxiety of learners and so, the participants with more years of instructions showed lower anxiety levels when compared to others. Key words: Speaking anxiety, Turkish EFL students, native instructors, non- native instructors, language skills.