ENHANCING ESL SPEAKING MOTIVATION THROUGH SOCIO-AFFECTIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES

Abstract

Demotivated speakers were observed among the students who took English courses in UiTM despite the fact that the syllabuses for English language courses have already been embedded with socio-affective strategies. Some students were still seen struggled with their speaking motivation particularly while delivering speech or presentation in the classrooms. This study examined the socio-affective strategies used by the students in ESL speaking classrooms and the differences in the use of socio-affective strategies based on the students’ gender. In order to achieve the purposes of the study, a study was conducted to 126 students of UiTM Dungun who took English language course as required in their study plan. A set of questionnaire which was adapted from Oxford (1990) was distributed to the respondents through a Google form. The data was analysed using SPSS. The results showed that majority of the students did use socio-affective strategies in improving their speaking motivation and there was no significant difference found in the use of socio-affective strategies based on the students’ gender. On this basis, the use of socio-affective strategies should be further enhanced so as to improve the students’ speaking motivation particularly in the ESL classrooms.