THE CORRELATION BETWEEN ANXIETY AND SPEAKING PERFORMANCE OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 3 UBUD IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2022/2023

Psychological problem is one of dominant factors that affected students’ speaking performance. This study aimed at investigating the correlation between anxiety and speaking performance. Quantitative correlational design was implemented in order to measure the variables and show the coefficient revealing the correlation between the variables. There were a total of 37 students who were chosen as the sample of the study with the method of cluster sampling. Questionnaire and speaking performance assessment rubric were used as the research instruments. The result showed that there was a significant, negative correlation between the anxiety and speaking performance of the eighth grade students at SMPN 3 Ubud. This was demonstrated by the coefficient correlation value of -0.496, which indicating a strong, negative correlation as the value was close to -1. The correlation also had Sig. (2-tailed) value of 0.005 in the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Test and 0.000 in the Paired Samples T-test, which was less than 0.05 (Sig. <0.05). This indicated that the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted, meaning that there was a significant correlation between the two variables. The negative coefficient correlation also indicated that an increase in the students’ anxiety level would result in the decrease in their speaking performance. In other words, high students’ anxiety would result in low speaking performance and vice versa.