




































American International Journal of Education and Linguistics Research  

Vol. 2, No. 2; 2019 

ISSN 2641-7987   E-ISSN 2641-7995 

Published by American Center of Science and Education, USA 

 

55 

 

 

Psychological Factors that Affect English Speaking Performance 

among Malaysian Primary School Pupils 
 

 

 

Nazifullah Nijat 

Faculty of Education 

Paktika Institute of Higher Education 

E-mail:nazifullahnijat@gmail.com 

 

Hamza Atifnigar 

Faculty of Humanities and Literature 

Laghman University 
School of Education 

E-mail:Hamza.honaryar@gmail.com 

 

Kanageswary Chandran 
School of Education 

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities 

University Technology Malaysia, Malaysia 

E-mail:saikana9696@hotmail.com 

 

Siva Letchumi Tamil Selvan 
School of Education 

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities 

University Technology Malaysia, Malaysia 

E-mail:Cva_15@ymail.com 

 

Vijayaletchumy Subramonie 
School of Education 

Faculty of Social Science and Humanities 

University Technology Malaysia, Malaysia 

E-mail:vijayaletchumy@jb.real.edu.my 

 

 

 

Abstract 

Speaking is considered as one of the most important skill in learning a language especially English but many 

language learners find it difficult and need much effort to produce acceptable utterances in English. The aim of this 

study is to investigate Psychological factors that become obstacles to spoken English among Malaysian primary 

school pupils, and suggest possible solutions from the student’s perspectives to overcome the obstacles. For 

conducting current research, a questionnaire was used to collect data and identify the factors that affect students 

speaking performance, and find out possible solution from the students’ perspectives. After the data analysed, it was 

noticed that majority of students were the victims of the common physiological factors such as fear in the class, 

shyness and anxiety.  Most pupils did not have confident to speak because they felt fear to speak in English. While 

some other were felling shy and anxious when speaking in the class. Thus, pupils suggested solutions like interesting 

activities, encouraging learning atmosphere, a good rapport between teacher and students to help them to overcome 

these psychological factors that hinder them to speak in English.  

 

Keywords: Speaking English, Physiological Factors, Primary School Pupils. 

 

 



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1. Introduction 

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing language that involves producing, receiving and processing 

information (Brown, 1994). Speaking is the second productive skill among four language skills (Ahmed & Raba, 

2017). Richard (2008) states that most language learners evaluate their success and the usefulness of English course 

on the basis of how much they have improved in speaking proficiency. Thus, teachers need to pay special attention 

to the students’ speaking ability. In addition, learning to speak is considered the greatest challenge for all language 

learners (Pinter, 2006). Similarly, Richard (2008) claims that one of the productive skills in teaching English is to 

assist students to communicate and use English focusing on speaking activities. Also, Brown (2001) says that 

providing more opportunities to the students to express themselves through giving speaking activities enable 

students to speak English fluently.  

Sometimes within the opportunities to speak learners fail to communicate well. the reasons found in 

literature among Malaysians students is the influence of the first language, lack of vocabulary knowledge and the 

socio-economic status of the family affect English language learning (Misbah et al., 2017). In contrast, Brown, 

2001; Elhadi, 2015; Gebhard, 2000; Schwarz, 2005) argued that psychological factors such as anxiety, shyness, lack 

of confidence, and motivation are the main causes of high school and tertiary level students’ reluctance to speak in 

English. Though, numerous researches (Mas, 2009; Sanchita, 2017; Zua, 2008; Affat, 2008; Juhana, 2012; Pesce, 

2011; Erny 2014). have been conducted in different countries both on university and high school levels, in addition a 

few ( Rusli et al., 2018; Azizi.Yahaya et al. 2011; Misbah et al., 2017) of them have been carried out on high 

schools and university in Malaysia to identify the factors that affect the speaking performance and predict some 

solutions to overcome these factors. Consequently; motivation, friendly and cooperative environment, authentic 

activities and materials, emotional rapport, and developing student’s self-confidence are the best antidotes to 

overcome the obstacles. As indicated the demographics position of the researches specifically, in Malaysian high 

schools to found out psychological factors that affect speaking performance. But none of the researchers have 

focused on the primary school level students. 

This research paper aims to identify the psychological factors that affect speaking performance among 

Malaysian primary school pupils and analyze their perception on how to overcome the psychological factors that 

affect speaking performance. Looking at the age of the pupils the study was carried out through a questionnaire 

which was developed by the researchers. The participants of the study were 60 pupils from three primary schools. 

Thus, this research paper tries to answer the following questions. 

 What are the psychological factors that affect speaking performance among Malaysian primary school 

students?  

 How to identify the possible solutions to improve speaking performance among primary school pupils? 

 

2. Literature Review 

2.1 Psychological Factors 

According to Elhadi (2015), some psychological factors affect students when practicing their speaking and they are 

interrelated to each other. Multiple researches had been done to establish the role of psychological factors in the 

success and failure of learners speaking English.  Brown (2001) has stated that there are several psychological 

factors such as shyness and anxiety are considered as the main root cause of students’ antipathetic to speak. This is 

also in same ballpark with Gebhard (2000) who clearly defined that the students’ complication in speaking is 

occurred mainly by their shyness or anxiety; all of these effects stipulated that the teachers play major role to guide 

and assist the students to reduce those feelings and encourage their learning to speak in English. Furthermore, 

Schwarz (2015) says that psychological factors such as fear of mistakes, anxiety, shyness, lack of confidence, and 

lack of motivation are the factors that have been hindrance to students’ speaking skill. The exchange of the view 

above clearly proves that psychology plays a vital role in placing the students’ speaking skill in a difficult state. As 

mentioned by Schwarz (2015) on the premier five psychological factors that leads to speaking difficulties are also 

supported by Burns & Joyce in Nunan (1999) which strongly proves that psychological factors are one of the major 

factors make the students reluctant in speaking English. 

As discussed by various researchers as stated above, the foremost psychological factors will be presented 

such as anxiety, shyness, lack of self-confidence and lack of motivation. These are the main causes why 

psychological factors have great effect on speaking English as a target language.  

 

2.1.1 Anxiety 

Many researchers have found that second language learners have obstructions and complications in speaking 

English language. Khadija (2016) has stated that learners did not like to take risk in speaking English due to the 

feeling of anxious. According to Diao and Shamela (2013), the learners fear being negatively evaluated and were 



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apprehensive about public speaking classroom and teacher evaluation. Based on the research done by Ariyanthi 

(2016) has found out that the students were able to involve themselves and exchange ideas, views and their 

knowledge with their classmates, but the obstacle that she has encountered in her schools is that they are worried 

and reluctant to take risk because they are scared by students laugh and teachers’ judgment. Moreover, in case of the 

learners who speak the second language cannot be understood or not acceptable then there are high possibilities of 

be embarrassed and accepting ignorance from others. Heron (2005), has stated in his research that anxiety act as a 

part of negative influential affective factors which intercept the learners to master their speaking skill; it triggers the 

feel of nervous and afraid which might responsible to deficient oral performance. 

 

2.1.2 Shyness 

Elia and Irianti (2015) have clearly define the internal meaning of shyness by saying that it is an emotional thing 

which often become apparent to the feeling of agitation, uneasiness, or awkwardness experienced when a person 

doing something, engage in conversation, or been approached by other people, especially in new situations or with 

unfamiliar or unknown people. The above statement clearly stipulates that shyness is also counted as an obstacle to 

students in speaking English language. In line with this, the above statement was also given further explanation by 

Baldwin and Caroline, (2011) that the feel of obsessive fear or detestation that encountered by the students when 

speaking in public or speaking in front of people and feeling of shyness makes their mind go blank or that they will 

forget what to say. There are also some discussions on the nature of the students like being too passive and quiet that 

leads to their shyness to speak in English as stated by Bowen (2005). Their feeling of shyness directly blocks and 

hinders the students’ ability to speak in English. 

 

2.1.3 Lack of Confidence 

Lack of confidence occurred among the students is when they are aware that their conversation partners failed to 

perceive the intended meaning of their message or when they wrongly interpret the message delivered by other 

speakers. In this situation, the students’ lack of confidence to communicate can be seen undoubtedly when they 

prefer to keep themselves passive or silent while others do talking. Chen (2010) said that the main reason of 

students’ lack of confidence is their incapacity in speaking English. In this case, they also stated that the students 

think their English speaking skill is poor and they are not capable to speaking in English very well and fluently. On 

the other hand, Brown (2001) has explained further by saying that the lack of encouragement from the teacher is 

also one of the main reasons for the students’ lack of confidence. From this point of view, we could clearly say that 

the teacher didn’t give enough priority to convince students and make them believe that they are able to speak 

English well. This situation makes the students to lose hope in their ability and also indirectly demotivated to speak 

in English. This indicates that support and encouragement plays a major role to boost and enhance the students’ 

confidence. 

 

2.1.4 Lack of Motivation 

Motivation is a fundamental element in students’ learning to achieve the success point. Nunan (1999) have stated 

that motivation can easily influence the students’ reluctance to speak in English. In this sense, motivation is 

scrutinized as an essential factor that leads to a successful communication. Many studies have proved that the 

students with high and strong motivation to succeed able to persevere in learning and achieved good and better 

results when compared to those who have lack of motivation of success. In response to the issue of motivation, Babu 

(2010) argues that lack of motivation in learning can hinder the students to speak English in the classroom. Situation 

like this occurred due to the absence of motivation and support from the teacher towards the communication in 

English. In his further discussion, teachers with passion, creativity and interest in their students are also fundamental 

elements for motivating students apart from motivating students to learn well and actively communicate in English. 

 

2.2 Solution to Overcome the Psychological Factor 
In terms of solution, numerous researches (Mas, 2016; Sanchita, 2017; Zua, 2008; Affat, 2008; Pesce, 2011) 

conducted to overcome the psychological factors that affect the speaking performance of primary school students.  

 

2.2.1 Emotional Rapport 

Zua (2008), proposed that an emotional rapport should be built between students and teachers. By doing this, a 

comfortable zone will have between a teacher and students. The comfortable environment will help the pupils to 

believe on the teacher and pupils will not feel fear to speak in English. Moreover, a teacher should create an 

encouraging learning atmosphere where teacher indirectly develop pupil’s concentration when learning English. For 

an example, by creating encouraging learning atmosphere pupils will able to speak without any hesitation because 



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they will get support from a teacher to speak well in English and they tend to focus more on their speaking activity. 

The same solution can be used to motivate the pupils to speak. This notion is further supported by Affat (2008), 

constant encouragement and support by way of ask questions will encourage the pupils’ motivation to overcome 

their speaking difficulties. The example given by Sanchita (2017), a teacher must give equal attention to all the 

pupils in the classroom and encourage everyone to participate in classroom discussion and activities due to enrich 

the pupils’ enthusiasm to speak.  The encouraging atmosphere provides the pupils the feel of secure and helps them 

in the speaking of English. Nadeem and Arsyad (2010) also agreed that to reduce shyness problem during speaking 

encouragement, motivation and counselling can be given. That encouragement will help pupils to overcome their 

shyness due to laughing of their classmates during their speaking activity.  The exact solution given by Mas (2016), 

pupils need stable encouragement and sufficient chances to establish their speaking skills. Therefore, creating an 

encouraging surrounding is very important in order to help the pupils to overcome their psychological factors that 

affect in their speaking.  

 

2.2.2 Friendly and Cooperative Environment  

Lai and Seyedeh (2017) states that a friendly and cooperative environment will help pupils to defeat their problems 

in oral performance. The same recommendation given by Pesce (2011), to lessen the pupil’s shyness it is crucial to 

create a friendly and open classroom. By having this friendly environment, the shy pupils feel acceptable when they 

make any wrong during their speaking activity. The shy students will not concern of their flaws in terms of 

pronunciation and grammars rather they will feel motivate to speak. This has been supported by Chinmoy (2007) 

that shy pupils do not consider shyness as a problem when they have friendly atmosphere. Hence, it is essential to 

form a friendly environment, to hinder pupils’ psychological problem in speaking.  

 

2.2.3 Self-Confidence 

Liu and Huang (2010) suggested that to overcome psychological factor like lack of motivation, teacher need to boost 

pupils’ self-confidence. Lai and Seyedeh (2017), also agreed that teachers should develop their pupil’s self-

confidence. They give an example where teacher can praise their pupils’ during or after the speaking activity. By 

praising them, students will feel motivated and confident to speak more in next classes. Mas (2016) supported that to 

motivate pupils to speak; a teacher should provide motivational feedback. Motivational feedback stimulates pupil’s 

self-confidence to a greater level. The feedback helps the pupils to get motivated and to speak in English. Dawood 

(2015) explained that self-confidence general require accomplishing self-esteem, persistence and patient are some 

important solutions that are vital in increase students’ motivation to speak.  Thus, many researchers conclude that 

self-confidence is significant in enhancing pupil’s motivation to speak. 

  

2.2.4 Authentic Activities and Materials to Motivate Learners 

Teacher can motivate the pupils by using the authentic activities and materials which will prompt the motivation for 

the low proficiency of pupils to speak in the classroom (Rusreena, Melor & Harwati, 2018). Lin and Huang stated 

that, teacher can do activities that can stimulate pupils understanding of the prominence of English and enriching 

learners’ concern in English. Sakiroglu and Dikilitas (2012) further supported that, pupils who strongly motivated 

will like to learn the language and make an effort to learn the language.  Moreover, they claimed that the learning 

must be enjoyable, provoking and enthusing. Pupils will feel motivated by participating in various learning 

activities. Hence, variety of activities and materials in the classroom help the teacher to motivate the pupils to 

perform well in their oral performance.  

 

3. Research Methodology 

The quantitative research method was used in the study to investigate the phycological factors that affect speaking 

performance of pupils. In the current study, a survey research design is used to collect data. For achieving the 

objectives of the study, a total of sixty Pupils in upper primary level in Johor Bahru city were chosen randomly. 

where they are varied by age and grader, they are from primary four, five and six students, in the age group of ten to 

twelve. 

 

3.1 Data Collection and Instrument 

Data collection method in this quantitative study was done with the assistance of an instrument, which was 

abstracted and restructured for the level of the students, the upper primary level.  The questionnaire filled with 

twelve questions that categorized as guided questions, Likert questions and dichotomous questions.  The 

questionnaire is restructured as, to have more ideas on the psychological factors that factors that affect speaking 

performance of the upper primary students.  



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3.2 Data Analysis 

The required data for study was collected from the participants through questionnaire.  The collected data was 

analyzed question by question, to measure the most chosen factors.  The results of the gathered data are presented in 

diagrams and charts in the findings, through the findings, on the identified factors, suggestions were given to 

improve the psychological factors based on the students’ perception.  The limitations were seen later with the 

recommendation to overcome the limitation in the future. 

 

4. Analysis of the Result 

The small-scale research was conducted with the purpose the psychological factors that influence the primary school 

pupils’ speaking performance and solutions to overcome the psychological factors that affect their speaking skill.  

In this section, we will elicit on student’s point of view because their opinions are mandatory to answer the research 

questions and the students’ questionnaire played major role in this part. 

 

4.1 Students’ Questionnaire 

A questionnaire consisted of structured questions was designed and distributed to 60 upper primary school pupils in 

order to acquire and examine the psychological factors that hinder their English speaking skill and also to extract the 

appropriate solution that suggested by the pupils to overcome the problem. We will further describe and elaborate 

more on the main psychological factors that affect their English speaking skill and also applicable solutions based on 

the pupils’ responses in the questionnaire given.  

The questionnaires were mainly given to 5th standard pupils with mix ability which consists of 60 pupils 

from two different classes. This questionnaire contained 12 questions which are arranged in sequence and in 

smoothly-moving. It comprises variety of questions which are based predominantly on closed questions and open 

questions which were given to allow the pupils to have the freedom to choose and to answer in their own words. The 

closed questions are given choices to the pupils to choose “yes” or “no” and the pupils needed to select and tick the 

suitable answers from the choices given and also provide their opinion and justification for certain open questions.  

 

4.2 Findings and Discussion 

This section composed of the summarized data that gathered throughout the research procedure. The analysis is 

based on the pupils’ questionnaire which is quantitative data.  

 

4.2.1 Analysis of the Result 

62%
38%

Percentage

I don't like speaking English in class

I like speaking English in class

 

Figure 1: Pupils’ interest in speaking English in class 

 

It can be seen clearly from the figure 1 above, that very less quantity of pupils prefers to speak English in 

class. Overall 62% of pupils asserted that speaking English in class is less favourable and not interested.  The higher 

proportion of dislike indicates that English language is not their favourable language to speak and less importance 

was given to practice the language in their daily communication in class. On the other hand, (38%) of the other 



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respondents’ stated that they have the desire to speak in English in class due to their capability and confidence to 

communicate in English language.  

For the second question, regarding the consistency of speaking English in school was mostly responded as 

once in a wile which represents 53% of participants while 28% of pupils stated (not at all) indicate they never speak 

English in school. The above results revealing that higher portion of the pupils use their native language to 

communicate with teachers and also to their classmates even during the English lesson. This divulged that the pupils 

have less opportunity to speak English in classes or lack of speaking activity classes that contribute to less practice 

of English language. The absence of target language environment in the classroom brings to the lack of participation 

in real life circumstances. Apart from that, most of the pupils found it difficult to speak in English because they have 

negative perception on speaking English language like shyness, less confident to use the language, feel of anxiety 

and fear of making mistakes. This points out that, the pupils who never use English to speak in the school is due to 

the lack of practice, their laziness to take initiative to use the language and they do not aspire to reach their goal in 

speaking English language. Besides, 19% of other respondents speak English almost every day in the school 

indicates that there are some portion of pupils who are confident to use the language and they have practice the 

language inside and outside the classroom actively. 

 

Happy

Fear

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

The teacher Your
classmate

Parents Outsider

Happy

Fear

 

Figure 2: Feelings of the pupils when speaking with the following people in English. 

 

This part is devoted to identify the pupils’ feelings of fear and happy with teacher, classmates, parents and 

outsiders when speaking in English. The results show the greatest part of the pupils denoted that they have the fear 

of speaking in English with the teacher while only 20% of the pupils feel happy. This elicit the higher portion of the 

pupils worried over the teachers’ dismissive evaluation towards their speaking ability and it influenced them 

negatively by fostering the feel of fear, restless and makes the pupils to feel less confidence in their ability to speak 

English. When it came to the classmates, results seemed to switch towards the positive end of the scale. The 

majority of the pupils (87%) clarify that speaking English with their classmates trigger the feeling of happiness and 

they feel free to use English language without any feel of fear or anxious. However, 68% of the pupils feel fear to 

express themselves in English with their parents while 60% feel fear to speak in English with outsiders. Overall, the 

results showed that higher portion of the pupils feel happy to speak English with their friends compared to their 

parents, teachers and outsiders. This reveals that, most of the pupils do not seem to be nervous, anxious or fear when 

speaking English with their friends instead feel confident, more comfortable, and highly motivated due to the 

absence of the feel of making mistakes, fear and negative judgments. 



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18%

82%

Percentage

Yes

No

 
Figure 3: Confident level of the pupils when speaking in English 

 

The fourth question in the questionnaire is focused on the confident level of the pupils when speaking in 

English. The largest part of the population 82% said that they do not have enough self-confidence when speaking in 

English. Majority of the pupils assumed that their speaking skill needs improvement.  Even after many years of 

studying English language in school yet they still feel apprehensive when communicating in English due to many 

factors. Lack of practice, did not participate in discussions during speaking lessons, scared to voice their opinions in 

their classes, fear of making mistakes, lack of vocabulary, scared they would make some noticeable grammatical 

errors, lack of knowledge about a topic and fear of peers laughing at them could be suggested factors that affect their 

self-confidence when speaking in English. 

In question 5, when asked about the importance of speaking in English, 100% of the pupils stated that they 

completely agree with the statement. This indicates that the pupils aware of the importance of speaking in English 

for various reasons. Pupils have the conscious knowledge on the necessity of speaking in English because it is the 

only way learners can express their ability through, share their ideas with people around and act as a communication 

tool which is the fundamental element in their life. Joanna and Heather (2006) has scrutinized that speaking English 

assist the pupils to deliver their information or to receive message in any field of study. However, the pupils are still 

do not participate in speaking activities, being very passive and keep silent all the time without giving any responses 

or show voluntary actions to speak out or communicate in English due to various reasons which hinder their 

speaking ability. 

 

Percentage

Realia 30%

ICT  23%

Media  28%

Other teaching Aids  19%

Figure 4: Pupils’ feelings towards various situations during English lesson 



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The sixth research question is about the pupils’ feelings towards various situations during English lesson in 

the classroom.  The pupils were asked to choose among the four different feelings that they encountered from the list 

of feelings given in the questionnaire. According to the results of this questionnaire, as presented in figure 4, the 

pupils felt more confident (82%) when the teacher asks them to have a small group discussion and (63%) asks them 

to speak with the partner. By contrast, the pupils feel more worried (40%), shy (32%) and afraid (18%) when the 

teacher asks them questions in front of the class. Whilst, 47% of pupils also felt worried and shy (25%) when they 

have a question to ask in the class. Thus, pupils’ desire to have a discussion in a small group and to speak with a 

partner seems to encourage and provoke them to speak and exhibit their capabilities and competencies.  

On the other hand, some psychological factors like worry, shy and afraid directly and indirectly deterred 

the pupils’ capability to speak in English. This could be the feel of making mistakes in front of their teacher and 

classmates, shyness, nervousness, lack of self-confident and worry of being laughed by others. Tanveer (2007) 

scrutinized the above factor in his case study by stating that the pupils speaking ability, language learning and 

performances are might get affected by their feeling of stress, anxiety or nervousness. 

In question 7, 63% of the pupils agreed that the teachers should wait until the end of their speech to correct 

their speaking mistakes. This seems clear because most the people dislike or demotivated when the teacher 

interrupts them every time when they make mistakes (3%) or ask them to stop half way through their speech to give 

them corrections (5%).  This point out that pupils prefer when the teacher encourages their attempt to speak in 

English and they feel unrestrained when the teacher didn’t evaluate them while they are speaking. At the same time, 

pupils agreed the act of the teacher when they give written feedback (29%) after they completed their speech in 

English language during the lesson.  

Results from question 8 revealed that when doing speaking activities, 48% of the pupils prefer to do 

speaking activities with a small group of three or four classmates while very least proportion 3% of the pupils wish 

to do on their own.  That is, pupils are more willing to speak out and communicate in situation where there are more 

people to support them which indirectly boost their self-confident and reduce the feel of anxious and shyness. 

Besides, most pupils tend to do speaking activities with a partner (23%) and also with a large group of about 10 

classmates (19%). The result shows that the psychological factors like anxiety, shyness, fear of making mistakes and 

lack of self-confidence were least affected the pupils during English speaking activities when they are in group and 

with a partner. Thus, the findings from the research done by Park & Lee (2005) reinforced that higher proportion of 

the pupils’ anxiety level was negatively affected their oral performances. This indicates that the pupils’ 

psychological factors hinder their speaking abilities during individual oral performance when there are absences of 

encouragement, motivation and support.  

 

Percentage

Realia 30%

ICT  23%

Media  28%

Other teaching Aids  19%

 

Figure 5: Resources for speaking activities 

 

The pie chart above illustrates the pupils’ choice of resources need to be used by the teacher to makes them 

feel free to speak in English. 30% of pupils stated that the use of realia (real objects) during speaking activity will 

help them to overcome their psychological barriers and support them to speak in English. Besides, the use of ICT 

(23%) likes power point slides, audio, video and Media (28%) such as YouTube and television also encourage as 

well as raise their motivation to speak in English. This indicated that, the teacher should make use of the resources 



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suggested above in order to foster the pupils’ capability to speak and to make them feel free during speaking 

activities which will break the psychological factors that hinder their speaking ability.   

 

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Interest &
experiences Facts

Issues
Free topics

Topics

Topics

 

Figure 6: The preferred topics to talk during speaking activities 

 

When asked about the topics that they prefer to talk freely during speaking activities in class, majority of 

the pupils agreed to speak on free topics (55%) and topic related interest and experiences (42%). The results above 

revealed that, psychological factors are absence when the pupils speak based on their previous knowledge, 

experiences and familiar topics. More attention should be given to this point because it is considered as highly 

impactful to boost pupils’ motivation to overcome their psychological factors and it is the most fundamental element 

that influences their desire to speak. Teacher should take responsibility to lessen pupils’ pressure and anxiety 

through the selection of the topics for speaking activities. Around 0% pupils feel the facts related topics and topics 

based on issues (3%) will negatively influence their speaking ability and they might not be able to speak about facts. 

This clearly shows that; the teacher should be aware of the selection of topics to be given to their pupils during 

speaking activities. Riasati (2012), explicates that one’s lack of knowledge, desire, and preparation to a particular 

topic will highly effect one’s perceived competence which will make the pupils to feel empty and feel like they have 

nothing to share or give hence prefers to remain silent. This shows, proper motivation and appropriate teaching 

method as well as suitable selection of topic will help the pupils to overcome the psychological barriers that hinder 

their speaking ability as well as arouses their interest to learn and foster them to involve more in the class activities 

and oral practices. 



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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Role play

Debating

Retelling stories

Story telling

Description

Talking according to the picture

Short play

Speech contest

Acting and speaking

Problem solving

Hundreds

Speaking Activities

Speaking

Activities

 

Figure 7: Favorite types of English speaking activities 

 

This graph shows the favorite types of speaking activities that can be carry out during the speaking lesson 

to reduce the psychological factors that hinder their oral performance as well as to enhance the pupils’ ability to 

speak in English. As showed above, it seems clear that higher proportion of pupils prefer role play (68%) for 

speaking activity and this revealed that they feel more confident and motivated when they do acting as well as 

imitating the role of a character that they knew and familiar. Besides, talking according to the picture (48%) is also 

stated as most favorable speaking activity since the pupils can refer to the picture as a guidance to use proper 

vocabularies and examples. Story telling activity (45%) is also considered as an interesting speaking activity that 

helps the pupils to use their prior knowledge to talk about a specific story that they heard or watched earlier. This 

activity also provides them extra space to use their own imagination as well as motivate them to come out with some 

vocabularies to talk and share something. Teacher should implement the speaking activities that make the pupils to 

show better participation and also activities that can stimulate them to engage in the discussions which will provide 

better learning environment. Teacher plays a fundamental role to overcome the fear of making mistakes, lack of self-

confidence, anxiety and shyness that obstruct the pupils’ speaking ability and sparkle the pupils to engage actively in 

speaking activity. 

The last question is aimed to discover the ways to motivate pupils to participate in English speaking 

activities in class. Pupils were asked to choose the best methods and solution that can arouse their confident level to 

speak as well as trigger their ability to communicate in English. Largest part of the proportion (69%) has suggested 

the role of the teacher as a best remedy to overcome the psychological factors that obstruct and inhibit their ability in 

speaking skill. Teacher should aware that their positive evaluation and positive emotion will make the pupils to 

overcome their fear to speak. Offering them an appropriate learning environment which is student-friendly and 

stress- free environment with less judgments, rules, negative feedback and strict comments will enhance their self-

confident and reduce the anxiety level when speaking in English. Riasati (2012) scrutinize that learners get to know 

and trust each other better in friendly and secure environment which will lead to more involvement and participation 

of the pupils. Whilst, a teacher also should be kind to the pupils, give respect and trust them as well as take care of 

them which will make the pupils to start believe in themselves and feel comfortable to speak. Apart from that, 

appropriate speaking activities like role play, storytelling, and speaking based on the pictures are activities that 

makes the pupils feel free, relax to talk and boost their spirit to speak in English without the feeling of shyness. 



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Communicative activities bound all activities that aim, basically, to trigger pupils to talk freely and foster them to 

deal and interact with their surroundings. 

 

4.3 Solution from Students’ Perspective 

Based on the questionnaire analysis, pupils offered some solutions from their perspective to hinder their 

psychological factors that affect their speaking performance. Firstly, they wanted interesting activities to be carried 

out in the classroom. Based on the answers given, most pupils chose the activities like role play, talking according to 

the pictures and storytelling. Pupils wanted the activities to be more authentic. Authentic activities defined as “tasks 

identical or similar to those that children will eventually encounter in the outside world” (Ormrod, 2008, p.343).  As 

Rusreena, Melor and Harvati (2018) said, authentic activities and materials stimulated the motivation of pupils to 

speak in the classroom. Moreover, students also suggested that they preferred to do the speaking activity with a 

partner or in a group. They did not want to do the speaking activity alone. For an example, the activity like role play 

will create opportunity for pupils to communicate with others and pupils will not feel shy to speak with their friends. 

Next, solution given by pupils was the role of teacher in the classroom. This solution was based on the answers 

given in the questionnaire for question number twelve where pupils answered they wanted teachers to motivate them 

to speak. They required teachers to play crucial role in creating situation that pupils can speak. Hence, a teacher 

should create an encouraging learning atmosphere. The encouraging learning atmosphere helps pupils to speak 

without any hesitation with the support from a teacher and they tend to focus more on their speaking activity. This 

solution supported by Affat (2008), continuous encouragement and support by way of ask questions will encourage 

the pupils’ motivation to overcome their speaking difficulties. Pupils also recommended the best way for the teacher 

to correct their speaking mistakes is after they finished their speaking activity. Pupils did not prefer the teacher to 

interrupt during their speaking activity because it may cause fear for pupils to speak. Furthermore, student’s answers 

inferred that as a teacher a good rapport between teacher and students was very important. A good rapport between 

students and teachers develop a comfortable zone. The comfortable environment will aid the pupils to trust on the 

teacher and this will lead the pupils to overcome the feel of fear to speak in English.  

 

5. Suggestion and Conclusion 

5.1 Suggestion 

After analysing the psychological factors that affect speaking performance among, the expectation or desire from 

students were identified.  Therefore, the implication of suitable pedagogical also important to teach speaking.  

Interesting speaking activities will definitely contribute a great deal to students to develop their speaking skills.  

Based on the findings it is clearly understood that, there should be a suitable environment with collaborative work, 

teaching materials and sharing ideas.  Kayi (2006) suggested that, teachers have to engage the class with the 

speaking activities, such as group discussions, role play, information gap, brainstorming, storytelling, story 

completion and playing cards, these type of activities are appealing for collaborative tasks where the pupils have to 

work in group to speak up their mind.  Moreover, teacher should have less speaking time in class while increase the 

pupils speaking time, while teachers would be playing the role of facilitators who observe the flow of the activities, 

and provide assistance when needed.  When these pedagogical being implied in a speaking classroom, pupils would 

be more active to take part and would feel their learning is meaningful. 

 

5.2 Conclusion 

As mentioned earlier, this study was carried out to identify psychological factors that affect speaking performance of 

60 primary school pupils and solutions from students’ perspective to hinder those psychological factors. As a result, 

it has been revealed that, the main psychological factors that hinder pupil’s to speak in the classroom was Fear, 

shyness and worried. Most pupils did not have confident to speak because they felt fear to speak in English. Thus, 

pupils suggested solutions like interesting activities, teacher’s role, encouraging learning atmosphere, a good rapport 

between teacher and students to help them to overcome those psychological factors that hinder them to speak in 

English.  

There are few limitations of this study. The study was carried out only in 3 schools and it is limited to 60 

pupils only. Therefore, it is suggested to consider a bigger sample size to be engaged for future study. Furthermore, 

the current study conducted using a quantitative approach and data collected through only questionnaire.  Hence, in 

future research, qualitative approach recommended to use to gather more data. This can be done through document 

analysis, interview with the students and observation to study more on psychological factors that influence pupils’ 

speaking performance.  

 

 



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