THE USE OF LITERATURE CIRCLE TO DECREASE STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING ABOUT LITERARY WORKS (A CASE STUDY STUDENTS’ SELF REFLECTED CLASSROOM EXPERIENCES)

Abstract

Anxiety is a feeling where a person feels notconfident in one's abilities and doubts about what will happenongoing. Therefore, this study aims to determine the types and effects of anxiety and then investigate the extent to which the use of the literature circle strategy can reduce students' speaking anxiety.This research was conducted for students of two levels of English at a university in Ciamis. The qualitative approach used in this study. Procedure data collection is observation, and interviews. The findings show that there are four aspects of anxiety experienced by students in this study seen from the way of influencing and divided into four aspects of anxiety based on student experience, namely: worried because abilities cannot be maximal and satisfying, nervous because of factors that are seen by many people, afraid because they are afraid to do something. mistakes, and shame for fear of being ridiculed or humiliated by their appearance. This study also found three effects of anxiety experienced and demonstrated by students in their speaking performance and from students' perceptions, namely lack of confidence, lack of concentration, and lack of practice. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the use of literature circles received a positive response and most students agreed that the application of this strategy provided benefits and helped them to decrease speaking anxiety. According to their perception, the results of this study indicate that literature circles contribute to students' English speaking ability. Most of the students found it helpful to use the literature circle method, students said that it encouraged them to express and elaborate their opinions and also voice their thoughts. So the conclusion that literature circles could help decrease anxiety in speaking English with this fun method and also make them more confident in dealing with their anxiety. Keywords: literature circle, speaking anxiety, literasry work, case study.