Cicilya Sulelino. 2026. The Correlation between Students’ Anxiety and
Speaking Performance at the Tenth Grade of SMAN 1 Palopo. Thesis. English
Language Education Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education,
Cokroaminoto Palopo University (supervised by Andi Mangnguntungi S. and Reski
Yusrini Islamiah Yunus)
This research aimed to find out whether there was a correlation between
students’ anxiety and speaking performance at the tenth-grade students of SMAN
1 Palopo. This study applied a quantitative method with a correlational design. The
sample of this research was class X Tidore, consisting of 33 valid students’ data
after two students were excluded because their data were incomplete or invalid for
analysis. The students’ anxiety was measured by using the Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), while their speaking performance was
measured through an individual speaking test assessed based on pronunciation,
vocabulary, and fluency. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the
Shapiro-Wilk normality test, and Spearman’s Rank Correlation because the data
were not normally distributed. The findings showed that the students’ anxiety was
in the high category, with fear of negative evaluation as the most dominant
indicator. Meanwhile, the students’ speaking performance was generally in the
good category. The result of Spearman’s Rank Correlation showed that the
correlation coefficient was -0.189 with a significance value of 0.291. This indicated
a
very weak negative tendency between students’ anxiety and speaking
performance. However, since the significance value was higher than 0.05, the
statistical result did not support the existence of correlation. Therefore, the null
hypothesis was accepted and the alternative hypothesis was rejected. It can be
concluded that there was no correlation between students’ anxiety and speaking
performance at the tenth-grade students of SMAN 1 Palopo.