The effects of Scaffolded and Unscaffolded Feedback on EFL Learners' Speaking Anxiety and Speaking Self-Efficacy

Speaking in a foreign language has always been, and still is, one of the most anxiety inducing activities. This speaking anxiety may be both the result or the cause of low self-efficacy in speaking. Finding ways of improving the speaking self-efficacy and reducing speaking anxiety has long been a concern among teaching practitioners. The present study was an attempt to investigate the comparative effects of scaffolded and un-scaffolded feedback on EFL learners’ speaking anxiety and self-efficacy. The participants were 90 intermediate male EFL learners at Safir Language Institute in Tehran who were selected out of a total number of 120 participants who took a standard PET test. The participants were divided into two experimental groups and one control group. They were given questionnaires of speaking anxiety and speaking self-efficacy as pretests followed by 10 sessions of treatment using scaffolded feedback, un-scaffolded feedback and no feedback. Then, they filled out the same questionnaires as posttests. The collected data were analyzed using the one-way ANCOVA procedure. It was observed that scaffolded feedback could reduce the amount of speaking anxiety, while increasing speaking self-efficacy. This was followed by un-scaffolded feedback, which was presented through recast. These findings have theoretical implications for researchers and theoreticians as well as pedagogical implications for language teachers and learners.