Exploring EFL Students’ Perceptions of Self-Affirmation and Speaking Anxiety in an Indonesian Islamic High School: A Phenomenological Study

The ability to speak confidently in English remains a major challenge for students in English as Foreign Language (EFL) contexts due to psychological barriers such as anxiety and low self-belief. While self-affirmation has been proposed as a promising strategy to enhance emotional resilience, its application in secondary EFL settings, particularly in non-Western cultures, remains underexplored. This qualitative phenomenological study investigates how students perceive the role of self-affirmation in managing speaking anxiety and enhancing speaking performance in an Indonesian Islamic high school. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with Grade 11 students and analyzed thematically. Findings revealed that students view self-affirmation as a tool for mental readiness, anxiety reduction, and confidence building—though not a substitute for speaking practice. Fear of social judgment emerged as a key anxiety trigger, and students demonstrated varying self-assessments of their performance. The study concludes that integrating affective strategies like self-affirmation can complement linguistic training and foster emotionally supportive EFL classrooms. This research offers context-specific insights into learner psychology and expands the use of self-affirmation beyond Western academic environments.

Keywords: self-affirmation, speaking anxiety, speaking performance, EFL learners, qualitative research, phenomenology, Islamic