Abstract:

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of socio-affective strategies on speaking ability and anxiety reduction of Iranian Intermediate EFL learners. For this purpose, 44 learners of an English language institute were selected and participated in this study.
They were assigned into two groups of 22, experimental and control. Then, both groups sat for pretests, which were a speaking test of TOEFL IBT, an anxiety questionnaire by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), and a socio-affective questionnaire by Oxford (1990). The purpose of these tests were to measure the learners’ initial knowledge of speaking ability, their initial level of anxiety, and their attitudes toward using socio-affective strategies.
Afterwards, the experimental group received treatment based on socio-affective strategies. However, the control group received no treatment and was taught following conventional procedure. The treatment period and placebo took a seventeen-session semester. Finally, at the end of the semester both groups sat for the posttests of speaking ability, anxiety questionnaire, and socio-affective questionnaire.
After keying in the data into SPSS, the Mixed Within-Between Groups ANOVA statistical technique was used to measure speaking ability and the Wilcoxon, and Mann Whitney U test was used to measure both anxiety and socio-affective questionnaires. The data findings revealed that the learners’ speaking ability improves and their level of anxiety reduces by using socio-affective strategies. The results of this study might be of interest for teachers and practitioners in terms of using socio-affective strategies to increase learners speaking ability and lower their anxiety.

Keywords:

Socio-affective strategies, speaking ability, anxiety