The Use of Non-Verbal Cues in Expressing Anxiety during Oral Presentation: A Qualitative Study of ESL Speakers

English language has become a tough second language to most ESL learners. The struggle gets tougher when they are overly committed to speaking the language, with minimal errors. Speaking skill involves various language elements such as vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and strategies. Hence, it is crucial for the ESL learners to be equipped with good speaking skills. However, speaking anxiety occurs due to some reasons. This study hence aims to determine some non-verbal cues that the learners used to express anxiety and to identify some reasons for writing anxiety during oral presentation. Non-verbal cues provide useful information, in which messages are conveyed through the speakers? gesture, body movement and facial expression. This qualitative study involved five ESL learners from a public university. To obtain the data, semi-structured interview and observation were used as the primary method for the data collection. A video of the speaker's presentation was recorded and narrated to obtain the findings. Based on the findings, it was found that the learner used non-verbal cues whenever she felt anxious, and nervous during the presentation. The findings show that the non-verbal cues displayed were associated with speaking anxiety with some perceived reasons. Results of this study have given a great impact on teaching and learning of ESL academic writing.