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.