A quantitative study investigated the levels, causes and effects of anxiety in speaking over academic achievement among EFL non-English majors at Thai Nguyen University of Education, Vietnam. The study examined 128 non-English majors who had finished one year of intensive English at university. The findings show that EFL students at Thai Nguyen University are at moderate level of speaking anxiety (M=67.45; n=128). The findings also indicated that the causes of speaking anxiety came from MSOSA4 (Fear of making mistakes), MSOSA8 (Fear of being laughed at), MSOSA9 (Lack of confidence), MSOSA20 (Fear of negative evaluation), and MSOSA14 (Fear of being the focus of attention). The study also found that students who had higher levels of anxiety gained lower academic proficiency in speaking. The mean of levels of proficiency for Low anxiety (M = 2.22, SD = 0.70) was significantly larger than that for High anxiety (M = 1.68, SD = 0.66), p = .002. The mean of levels of proficiency for Medium anxiety (M = 2.02, SD = 0.60) was significantly larger than that for High anxiety (M = 1.68, SD = 0.66), p = .026.

Speaking anxiety, academic language proficiency, sources of speaking anxiety.

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