Exploring the Factors Predicting EFL Learners’ Oral Presentation Performance: Why ‘Gritty’ and Self-efficacious Students Perform Well

Oral presentations are widely adopted by language teachers in EFL classrooms to test language learners’ speaking capability. This study aims to explore how five psychological factors, including motivation (ideal L2 self and ought-to L2 self), L2 grit, anxiety, plus two strategies (pronunciation-oriented strategies and social-affective strategies), predict EFL learners’ oral presentation performance. The participants were 316 second-year Chinese students attending a university-level EFL listening and speaking course. They delivered a two-minute Pecha Kucha presentation in public, and data were collected via a test battery of the seven predictive factors, which was validated by the researcher. Results revealed that L2 grit predicts oral presentation performance with a moderate effect. Ought-to L2 self, ideal L2 self, self-efficacy and anxiety predict oral presentation performance with a weak effect, with anxiety having a negative impact, and the two strategies predict oral presentation performance with a very weak effect. The qualitative data supported the quantitative data by adding student-centred perceptions of these relationships. These results highlight the importance of nurturing positive psychological elements such as grit for students’ oral task performance.