SELF¬-CONFIDENCE AND SPEAKING SKILLS OF THE FIRST-YEAR UNDERGRADUATES: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY AT A PUBLIC SECTOR UNIVERSITY IN PAKISTAN

All the four language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening are equally important for language learners. Studies show that students learning English as a second language face challenges in learning these four skills. However, production skills i.e., writing and speaking seem to pose greater challenge to learners especially in non-English countries. The challenges related to speaking might be related to several psychological or environmental factors. Self-confidence is one of those areas of concern. Therefore, the present study aims to find out if there is a correlation between self-confidence and speaking grades of first year university students at a public sector university in Pakistan. In this regard, a self-confidence questionnaire (SCQ) was administered to 31 participants from a class of Business Administration department. The collected data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 software and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was calculated. The data analysis revealed that there is a positive but statistically non-significant correlation between self-confidence and speaking grades. Therefore, the study suggests that some experimental studies on the subject should be conducted, and more variables could be brough in to obtain a broader picture of the phenomenon. Small sample size stands as a limitation of the study.