Drama Techniques as Correlators of the Level of English Language Speaking Anxiety

Introduction. The study aims to investigate what factors strengthen and weaken personal speaking anxiety. With the use of selected standardized surveys, the research examines how drama techniques affect a learner’s level of English language speaking anxiety. Materials and Methods. The research group includes 17 Polish primary school learners who attended drama classes and prepared two performances in English for other learners and their parents. The questionnaire with the stated research questions was applied, and the data obtained were statistically analyzed. Results. The research results show that the learners participating in English drama classes had a lower level of speaking anxiety than those who did not practice drama at all. As to the learners ́ English language proficiency, the level of speaking anxiety dropped with the rise of academic level. No significant difference was observed either in the level of speaking anxiety between male and female participants or in the level of speaking among learners of different age. The impact of drama techniques implemented into the English language classes is discussed in the study. The research results indicate the influence of drama techniques on the reduction of the level of speaking anxiety. The decrease is very noticeable that should inspire teachers to use drama techniques while teaching a foreign language, especially speaking skills. The analysis also indicates a close correlation between drama classes and the increasing level of English proficiency. Discussion and Conclusion. The topic of the article is to meet the interest of foreign language teachers and learners, would-be teachers of the English language.


Introduction
Poland and the Czech Republic remain the states where English as a foreign language (EFL) is taught from the earliest (i.e. preschool) age. The subject is expected to be examined when finishing primary school; therefore, teachers tend to focus on three skills which are included in the examination process; reading, listening and writing. It is easy to notice that the skill of speaking is excluded from this examination despite the fact that many researchers claim that speaking remains the most paramount skill and signifies that a learner is also able to read, listen and write with understanding. One of the possible reasons for excluding the skill from the examination routine might be the fact that at this age many young learners do have to cope with a form of difficulty to cope with emotional dysfunction, labeled in literature as speaking anxiety. Considering that speaking skills are of prime importance, but still of little time devoted to them, speaking anxiety is a serious problem in teaching different forms of verbal communication. Neither in Poland nor in the Czech Republic is there a sufficient amount of research taking this matter into the deeper consideration. Apart from that, another under-investigated goal is to find out whether the level of one's speaking anxiety correlates with such sociolinguistic variables as gender, age and the level of self-esteem.

Literature
Review L e a r n i n g , e s p e c i a l l y l e a r n i n g a foreign language, is often connected with fear. Although some students feel relaxed in front of the class, for many others speaking in a foreign language remains a most frightening experience. This feeling of low self-confidence gives rise to anxiety. Anxiety is a biochemical reaction in the body. It is more than being nervous or worried. Spielberger [1] cited in Horwitz, one of the most renown anxiety researchers, claims that anxiety is "(…) the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with the arousal of the autonomic nervous system" [2, p. 125]. For some students counting in mathematics class could be very stressful; for others, speaking in front of a group may also become a frightening nightmare. Horwitz points out that scientists divide people into two categories [2]. The first group of people feels sick with the said apprehension regularly, regardless of the situation. For many anxious students, even speaking or writing in their mother language can be very stressful and causes anxiety. It can be the reason why they tend to avoid stressful situations, try to be invisible and, at the same time, isolate themselves from the group. The second group of people becomes anxious only during specific situations, such as learning and using a foreign language, for instance. Some of these students may not be able to understand the teacher's explanations and/ or instructions; they tend to complain about the difficulties connected with internalizing the structures of the target language. So anxiety may be a reason for the behaviour they have been forced into.
Research aimed at teachers, not at their learners, was conducted by Kralova and Mala [3]. The results show that there is a positive correlation between the age and English pronunciation anxiety of Slovak EFL teachers which means that the older the EFL teachers are, the more they suffer from English pronunciation anxiety. Nevertheless, the anxiety was of moderate strength and not of the highest level determined.
While making an attempt to find out the sources and the consequences of language learning anxiety, Ellis distinguishes three types of anxiety: trait anxiety connected with the person's personality, their predisposition to fear; state anxiety, establishing the stress in relation to a specific situation, such as a class performance, sitting tests and/or examinations, or speaking in public; and situation-specific anxiety associated with a particular condition, such as an effort to learn a second language and communicate in it, for example [4, p. 479-480]. The purpose of this paper is to show that not only is lack of knowledge a source of poor performance or achievement in foreign language learning, but anxiety and its sources are also a considerable reason of failure.
The sources and levels of anxiety are different, and they depend on the person's predispositions. Anxiety is a stable feature of personality, just like other personality traits. According to Edwards, all people experience anxiety: this is a natural human state and an active part of our lives [5, p. 3]. It helps us recognise and reply to danger. It can motivate us to deal with difficult challenges. The proper amount of anxiety can help us perform better and inspire to action and creativity. But a high level of anxiety may have a genuinely distressing, debilitating and painful influence on our lives as well as our physical and mental health.
Spielberger claims that this trait of anxiety relates to an "acquired behavioural disposition that predisposes an individual to perceive a wide range of objectively non-dangerous circumstances as threatening" [1, p. 16]. Also, the ways of coping with anxiety and manifesting are variegated. Oxford points out four manifestations of anxiety: (a) general avoidance: showing carelessness, cutting class, low levels of oral productions, luck of volunteering in the lessons; (b) physical actions: fidgeting, playing with hair or clothing, stuttering or stammering; (c) physical symptoms: headache, pain in any part of the body; and (d) unreasonable self-effacement, excessive competitiveness, enmity and/ or unreasonable laughing or joking [6, p. 66]. Incidentally, there are also many cases when students do not show their anxiety at school, but it is seen when they come back home.
It is advised to develop an understandingbased relationship with an anxious student, to address them with a quiet and calm voice and to get to know what the reasons for the student's anxiety are. Sometimes the result of asking someone to "calm down" may be reversed to the one expected, as this address may make a student be more nervous, afraid or shy. Anxiety does not just come one day; it grows and develops inside such students for quite a while and is often followed by tears and breakdowns -leading students to a state when they are afraid to give the wrong answer. The fear of being wrong may be a manifestation of their anxiety, or sometimes it may develop because they are ambitious. Another possible conclusion reported by Horwitz may be as follows: the level of their personal anxiety decreases, but their inability to function is not a result of their procrastination and laziness [7]. He discusses cases where people who avoid communication in the native language and are considered as taciturn or shy, feel more at ease when speaking in a foreign language because it gives them the feeling of being a different person. Moreover, in order to achieve the ability to communicate in a foreign language, acquisition takes a lot of time and hard work. It requires regularity, patience and willingness to learn from the mistakes committed so students who lack the motivation to learn a language do not achieve tangible results and do not develop communicative skills.
Ellis observes that situation-specific anxiety is a tension experienced in relation to a particular situation [4]. One of its generators is speaking in front of a group, which is connected with the speaker's judgment. It is a very stressful situation for a speaker when others listen to them, draw (specific) conclusions and evaluate their statements. People who suffer from situation-specific anxiety are concerned with the negative evaluation.
The first source of such evaluation is the teacher. Initially, they are or should be, an expert, so it means that they can notice every error and mistake. For some students, it is impossible to say anything if they are not sure that what they say is to be assessed as correct and understandable; therefore, they prefer not to communicate without being sure of their fluency. Additionally, teachers take part in the students' performance in a number of ways; they show approval or disapproval, irritation, interest or disinterest, they take part in a conversation or just listen and evaluate. As Turula observes, the teacher's reaction encourages students to speak or, quite the opposite, stresses and blocks them [8, p. 161]. Horwitz notices that many students are less anxious when they are able to prepare for the speech, while roleplay situations are very uncomfortable for them [7].
Moreover, a teacher has been made responsible for the class environment. Turula maintains that classroom management is the prime source of feeling safe [8, p. 163]. In the right conditions, students are willing to listen to one another, they understand the teacher's explanations better, they do not feel out of control. Al-Saraj discovered that teachers are the leading cause of anxiety [9, p. 3-4]. Learners are often afraid of their teacher's corrections and having each of their mistakes pointed out. Furthermore, students do not like when the teacher shows favouritism, as they tend to feel alone and underestimated. The teacher's personality, authority and the way of running a lesson, as well as the teaching methods applied are also of uttermost importance. Students appreciate their teachers' support, encouragement, concern and attention.
Class performance anxiety is especially stressful for adults in language learning classes as it impedes their communication because they are conscious of the level of their expression, and lack of fluency and correctness. They are often nervous and impatient because of the inability to express their thoughts and knowledge in a second language. On the other hand, Zare and Riasati found a positive correlation between one's academic level, self-esteem and anxiety [10, p. 223]. Based on their research, they indicated that the level of anxiety corresponds to students' study experience. They proved that studying widens one's horizons, expands the student's knowledge and improves language proficiency, so the level of senior students' anxiety decreases.
Yet another source of anxiety is the judgment passed by one's classmates. Students usually prefer speaking in small groups because it is not so stressful as performing in front of the teacher. They are able to correct one another to an extent and do not notice so many mistakes when they work together [11, p. 51]. However, when a student performs in front of the classmates who are not experts and do not have influence over the marks, they often feel and see their approval or disapproval, nervousness, and/or even impatience. If they are not interested in the performance, they do not participate in the conversation or tease and laugh. Some students do not approve of the students generally recognized as weak; not only do they tend to isolate and ignore them, but they also do not offer them any support or comfort. Therefore, as noticed by Turula, "low-achievers" rarely take part in cooperation; they are always in the shadow of others, which naturally makes their communication skills either not to develop or develop far too slow [8, p. 163]. Watson and Friend describe anxiety as "(…) apprehension about others' evaluations, avoidance of evaluative situations, and the expectation that others would evaluate oneself negatively" [cited in 7, p. 31]. Peer judgment is more stressful than tests because the situation and students' reactions are more unpredictable. Moreover, fellow students' estimation occurs usually immediately during communication and the speaker has to be prepared for the response, which is not easy, especially in a foreign language.
One more source of situation-specific anxiety is examination. Tests are very stressful for many students who are aware that during such tests they must trust themselves only and that there is practically nobody willing to help them. Some of them may feel fear because their expectations towards themselves are very high and they are afraid of making errors, misunderstanding or failing the test. Often, especially among university students, learners try to memorise all information during a few days and nights, helping themselves with a substantial amount of coffee and/or other stimulants. Then, what has been clearly described by Ablow [12, p. 9], on the day of the exam they can feel anxiety accompanied by panic, headaches, frustration, hallucinations or paranoia; they are not able to focus, and therefore, they feel anxious. It is very common that, after such a test, many students come to the teacher and say 'I knew it, but I forgot' or 'I don't know how it happened. I studied a lot but didn't do well during the test'. The answer is very easy here: all these facts happened because of anxiety. This is the fundamental reason for the difficulty in concentration, feeling of fear, helplessness and memory gaps. When students start to think, it takes a lot of time before their breath becomes regular and they are able to work again. Sometimes, for example, when the test is particularly important, the stress can be so strong that students are close to fainting or they are unable to stop giggling. In the literature [12, p. 10-11], this phenomenon is called "test anxiety".
Anxiety may occur in different conditions. Horwitz claims that anxiety usually appears in three situations: communication, tests, and evaluation [13, p. 127]. Communication means interactions with other people, so the speaker has to deal with such skills like speaking and listening. Communication plays a crucial role in foreign language learning anxiety, particularly for people who are shy and any kind of cooperation is a problem for them. Then, foreign language learning is an additional negative factor and it can affect different situations during the lessons. Spielberger [1, p. 12] points out, that state anxiety refers to a fleeting and ephemeral feeling, which varies in intensity and evolves over time. It is a short-time bodily experience. Students with state anxiety may feel energised, strained, nervous or steady, which affects their behaviour, understanding, acquiring knowledge or emotions. According to Ellis [4,p. 480], state anxiety consists of trait anxiety and situation-specific anxiety.
On the other hand, Suleimenova writes that teachers should make an attempt to create a low level of stress, as well as a friendly and supportive atmosphere in the classroom [14, p. 1867]. The topic of the discussion should be interesting and relevant to the age of the learners and that students should feel solidarity and support in the group. One of the teacher's roles is also to understand the students' fears and to help them confront these fears as much as they could. Sometimes the level of anxiety is high because the amount of new material and new tasks is too high and the students do not have enough time to memorise all the information. It is evident that students are at different levels of language competence, so a teacher should give specific directions, emphasise the most important elements, divide the material into some parts, use less difficult instructions. It is also useful for teachers to have some knowledge about the students: their personality, abilities, learning styles, preferences, interests and hobbies. Such knowledge may help the teacher to understand them and choose the best topics and methods of teaching, especially in communication. An interesting observation can be found in Donley's writings. American college students selected the best teachers' behaviour in this way: "not calling on individual students, not teaching the language as a massive memorization task and being sensitive to students´ out-of-class obligations" [cited in 2, p. 120].
However, mild anxiety may also be a positive factor. Stress may be interpreted as a power which mobilises us and gives us the strength to act. At school, it motivates students to learn new tasks, to make an effort to deal with new challenges, to obtain significant results. Learners try to achieve some goals and when they reach them, they do not think about the anxiety which accompanied them before [15]. Students who do not feel nervous or impatient, who are too relaxed while taking a test or exam, sometimes make unexpected mistakes because they are too incautious and unfocused.
Thinking about a language, usually, four skills come to our mind: speaking, listening, reading and writing, yet speaking seems the most important of all of them. It is widespread to hear: 'I can understand, but I can't speak'. According to Widdowson [16,p. 1], while learning a new language, it is important to acquire and develop speaking skills so that one does not only understand when others speak but is also understood when one speaks, knows how phrases are used to achieve a communicative effect. Therefore, classroom activities and teaching methods that develop learners' speaking skills are significant components of a lesson. Brown claims, that "(…) conversation is an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through interactive discourse with other speakers of the language" [17, p. 267]. The aims and methods of teaching speaking are different from the techniques used in developing the skills of reading, listening or writing. They depend much on the students, teachers, and the overall context of the class, but also the history of teaching shows that they vary over time (for example, currently there is a greater focus on teaching pronunciation than used to be a few years ago when reading comprehension was more valued). Nowadays, teachers try to find a balance between accuracy and fluency techniques, as they need to focus on both relatively equally, each time assessing which is more important in the given classroom context. And so it appears that accuracy when teaching new vocabulary is far more important at that stage; the technique itself entails the drills of the pronunciation of a new word and its collocations, its meaning and whether it is appropriate to use it in a particular context or not, as well as the relationship to other words, synonyms, antonyms or hyponyms.
The drama has an amazing influence on the acquisition of foreign language skills for EFL students, with a particular focus on oral skills. Smith and Herring maintain that it is a powerful and effective tool for connecting students with learning and satisfaction [18, p. 418]. Drama gives one's identity and the possibility to become someone else. Holden claims, that it allows students to portray either themselves or some other people in an imaginary situation [19, p. 6]. This identity may help students achieve success in foreign language acquisition. In the late 1970s, a teaching technique called the communicative approach became popular and since that time drama has been recognized as an integral part of language teaching.
During foreign language classes, learners do not have many speaking opportunities. In many traditional foreign language classrooms, when students do get to speak, they often find themselves facing problems of making sense of certain target language words while having difficulty pronouncing them [20]. This impedes their ability to communicate in a target language. They stammer and stutter, trying to make themselves understood. The more errors they make, the more diffident and unmotivated they become, and less likely they are to speak. The role of the teacher is to create an environment that encourages spontaneity. This can be achieved through constant participation in oral interaction via, e.g. drama techniques. Such regular participation can result in more speaking time, particularly by means of informal conversation practice. Consequently, there is the probability of a greater opportunity to be practiced using the target language. The more students speak, the better the possibility that they can overcome their target language problems.

Materials and Methods
In the research there took part 17 primary school drama class students in Poland. They prepared two plays to be watched by other students at school. They also performed the dramas in the kindergarten and to the parents. The study was conducted through the use of common surveys translated into the native language namely Foreign Language Communication Anxiety created by Horwitz, The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Headway Oxford University Press to establish students' CEFR level of English proficiency. Having presented the surveys' results, the following data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 23 software: age, the level of English fluency and self-esteem, and the level of speaking anxiety.
The main purpose of our study was to establish whether the feeling of anxiety influences the students' oral performance and to investigate what factors strengthen and weaken personal speaking anxiety, to be particularly measured during drama classes. In addition, the research was also an attempt to determine possible interdependence between anxiety and students' self-esteem, gender, age and level of proficiency.
A total number of 42 EFL 13-, 14-and 15-year-old-primary school learners were selected for the current study. All of them attended their seventh and eighth grade. In one grade the age of students was different because they started school at a different age. The school was located in a small village, where students from three small villages attend and they hardly ever had an opportunity to speak a foreign language and to meet English-speaking people. The only possibility to use spoken English for most of them was either computer games or (occasionally) accidental residents of the agriculture hostel which is located in this area. The students attending this school had three English lessons a week. Moreover, 17 students from the present eighth grade had one extra drama lesson in the English language in the previous year and they performed two plays in English and prepared some extra activities associated with these dramas for other students.
Specifically, the study attempted to seek answers to four questions that investigated the correlation between speaking anxiety and other factors. In this way, the following questions arose in the study: 1. Can the drama classes decrease/ increase the level of speaking anxiety?
2. Can the learners' academic level influence their level of anxiety?
3. Can there be found any relationship between students' gender and the level of anxiety?
4. Can self-esteem affect the level of speaking anxiety of EFL learners?
The appropriate hypotheses were put to each of the questions apart from that, the null hypothesis assumed that there was no correlation between speaking anxiety and the level of language proficiency, gender, age or the level of students' self-esteem.
The quantitative method was applied in the research. There were four steps of the survey; the first one was to recognize the level of English language proficiency (CEFR global scale). For this purpose, Headway CEFR Placement test [21] prepared by Oxford University Press was provided in two classes.
The second step was to get the basic knowledge about learners: their age, gender, interests connected with a foreign language, the length of their English language education, the amount of time spent by them weekly on learning the foreign language. An additional focus was on whether students were looking for other sources of foreign language improvement except for their student's books.
Next, for the purpose of the study, each participant was asked to complete the FLCAS questionnaire during the lesson. When the questionnaires were distributed, students were provided with general information about the questionnaire and then they were briefed on the purpose of the survey and how to assess 33 statements in the questionnaire. Moreover, the participants were informed that their participation would not influence their test scores and would be kept confidential.
The last questionnaire was The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (1965), which comprised 10 items that measure individuals' self-esteem level, positive and negative feelings about the self.

Results
The aim of the first research question was to determine whether students who participated in drama classes differed in the level of speaking anxiety from those students who did not participate in these classes. Student's t-test for independent samples was the test that was applied there. As shown in Table 1 above, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups, so it means that the students who participated in drama classes had a lower level of speaking anxiety. The results are presented in Figure 1 below. Note: M -mean; SD -standard deviation; t -Student's t-test score; p -statistical significance level; CI -confidence interval; LL -lower limit of the confidence interval; UL -upper limit of the confidence interval (own elaboration). The second research question analysed whether learners with varied academic levels differ in speaking anxiety. It was implemented a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) here. The result of this test was statistically significant (Table 2). Therefore, it was performed a post-hoc analysis with the use of a Sidak test. The differences between all analysed groups were statistically significant. The level of speaking anxiety dropped with the rise of the academic level. The results are presented in Figure 2.
Answering the third research question, differences were sought between male and female students in the level of speaking anxiety. It was used Student's t-test for independent samples here. As depicted in Table 3, there was no statistically signifi-cant difference between groups. The results are presented in Figure 3 below.
In the following step, it was analysed an interdependence between the level of speaking anxiety and self-esteem. So as to establish the results Pearson's r correlation was performed. According to the results, there was no significant correlation between the level of speaking anxiety and the level of self-esteem: r = .-06; p = .721.
In the final step, it was analysed whether there are any differences in the level of speaking anxiety between students of different ages. One more time, it was performed a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The result was not statistically significant ( Table 4). As can be seen in Figure 4, the level of speaking anxiety did not differ between the students of different ages. Note: M -mean; SD -standard deviation; t -Student's t-test score; p -statistical significance level; CI -confidence interval; LL -lower limit of the confidence interval; UL -upper limit of the confidence interval (own elaboration).

Discussion and Conclusion
While answering the first research question, i.e. whether drama classes decrease/increase the level of speaking anxiety, the results indicate the influence on the reduction of the level of speaking anxiety. The decrease is very noticeable, which should inspire teachers to use drama techniques while teaching a foreign language, especially speaking skills. Drama also motivates students to learn foreign languages, and through drama activities, students become more sociable, and cooperate with other students, encourage to group-work, create a safe and friendly environment.
As to the second research question, whether the learners' academic level influences their level of anxiety, the outcomes show that there is a correlation between the level of English proficiency and the level of anxiety; more adept students have lower stress levels. This result also proved previous studies [cf. 7; 13], which indicated the negative impact of speaking anxiety on the level of English efficiency.
When making an attempt to answer our third research question, whether there was any relationship between students' gender, age and the level of anxiety, the analysis of the results indicates that no significant distinction between the level of anxiety and age T a b l e 4. Learners' speaking anxiety level and age  . 5] which also designate the lack of correlation. However, what is worth noting, the outcomes demonstrate that 14-year-old students have a slightly higher level of anxiety than one year younger students. It seems to be connected with two aspects. First of all, the researched group was a group of "low-achievers", what means their level of English proficiency was not high what, consequently, should result in the increase of the level of their stress. Second of all, this stage of teenagers' development is often described by psychologists as a closing stage, caring for their privacy, fear of negative judgement, and unwillingness to cooperate. Thus, the level of anxiety usually becomes higher. The last research question of the study aimed to investigate the possible impact of the level of students' self-esteem on the extent of speaking anxiety. Based on the score of the study, it was found no correlation between self-esteem and the level of anxiety. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the fact that previous studies [cf. 13] examined the influence of fear on the level of students' self-esteem, and the analysis pointed out the decrease in the level of self-esteem.
The analysis indicates a close correlation between drama classes and the increasing level of English proficiency while at the same time reducing the level of speaking anxiety. Therefore, the study may be considered to be an essential and significant contribution to the forthcoming research on the concept of anxiety in relation to student-centered classroomfocusing speaking anxiety.
Even though speaking anxiety appears in a foreign language classroom, a detailed examination of previous studies specified above as well as our research indicates that there exist some ways to decrease the level of anxiety and alleviate the effects of students' stress. What is more, although the source of fear may be inside the student's mind, the teacher, while taking into account the learners' level of self-esteem, age and/or the level of English proficiency, ought to feel responsible for their students' attitude and motivation to enhance the process of acquisition of a foreign language. Ways and aims of teaching, including the teacher's creativity, the students' learning styles, personalities, and age could be the factors that should be taken into account when preparing students' self-confidence strengthening foreign language lessons.