Munawaroh Nadziratul Khusna. K2217056. INVESTIGATING ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY DURING THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK: A CASE STUDY. A Thesis. Teacher Training and Education Faculty. Sebelas Maret University. January 2022.

The present study aims to determine students' speaking anxiety levels and identify the causes and strategies to minimize speaking anxiety during the COVID-19 outbreak. For this qualitative research, thirty-six first-year English education department students of an Islamic university in Surakarta were recruited. The researcher collected the data through the questionnaire, interview, and virtual classroom observation. The questionnaire was distributed to all participants, and nine participants were recruited to join the follow-up interview. Moreover, Miles and Huberman's (2014) model was applied to analyze the data gained in the study, which consisted of three phases. There are data condensation, data display, and drawing conclusions. The findings revealed that: (1) most participants showed moderate speaking anxiety levels; (2) several causes trigger students' speaking anxiety, including the low English proficiency, fear of making mistakes, poor language learning experience, low self-esteem, spontaneous and individual speaking performance; (3) several strategies both students and teacher could do to minimize students' speaking anxiety are preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, peer seeking, and classroom procedure; (4) online learning did not trigger students' speaking anxiety.