Exploring aspects of EFL Speaking Anxiety from the perspectives of Iraqi medical undergraduates

Speaking skill is essential for effective communication. Studies have shown that speaking English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Iraq experienced speaking anxiety when dealing with speaking tasks. This study aimed to explore the aspects of EFL speaking anxiety from the perspectives of Iraqi medical undergraduate students that included the causes, effects, and strategies that these students employed in order to reduce their speaking anxiety. Data were collected via two types of semi-structured interviews: students’ and teachers’ interviews. The participants comprised fifteen students and five teachers of Technical Institute for Medicine–AlMansoor. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the causes of speaking anxiety that Iraqi medical undergraduate students faced were related to fear of negative evaluation, fear of making mistakes, lack of vocabulary knowledge, unfamiliar topics, lack of time management, lack of confidence, and classroom. .environment. Three main effects that emerged from the responses of students were personal effects, social effects, and academic effects. The findings also revealed that EFL Iraqi medical undergraduate students used four strategies to overcome speaking anxiety: cognitive strategy, meta-cognitive strategy, affective strategy, and memory strategy. Thus, the sources of speaking anxiety as expressed by the students revealed numerous issues concerning the teaching and learning of English that needed to be addressed by the major players in education namely the teachers, the ministry of education, and the course developers in order to improve the teaching of English in Iraq