| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學系 === 105 === This study aims to examine what challenges would be confronted, how those challenges were dealt with and what personal growth reaped during the process of preparing for an English speech contest from the perspectives of high school students in Taiwan.
A qualitative research method was employed in this case study. Two first-year high school students with different proficiency levels were invited to be the participants of this study. Data were collected through multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews with students, observations of each practice, and other related artifacts. Data were analyzed by constant comparative method.
The results showed that the challenges the two participants faced could be divided into four categories, including the intra-sentence level challenges, inter-sentence level challenges, oral delivery and anxiety. Among these challenges, the top two challenges they faced were anxiety and oral delivery. In terms of language anxiety, anxiety did have debilitating effects on speaking; however, it can also have some facilitating influence on learner’s performance such as compelling the participant to face the contest more seriously. Also, the degrees of anxiety have to do with language proficiency. Learners with higher proficiency tended to have lower degree of anxiety. As for the challenges in oral delivery, what the two participants faced is associated with other non-linguistic aspects of speaking, such as posture, gesture, and voice and facial expression. In addition, the personal growth gained from such experience can be listed as below: (a) horizons-broadening experience, (b) a sense of achievement, (c) a sense of recognition from his peers, and (d) a sense of self-actualization. Based on the findings, pedagogical suggestions and direction for future research are provided. It is hoped more insights could be offered to both instructors and students who are interested in taking part in English speech contests.
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