The impacts of AI conversational agents on EFL learners' oral proficiency and foreign language speaking anxiety

Foreign language speaking anxiety remains a major affective barrier in EFL oral communication, particularly in classroom speaking activities. This study investigated the effects of an AI-supported speaking intervention on EFL learners' oral proficiency, speaking anxiety and learner's perception across different task types. Adopting a mixed-method quasi-experimental design, 83 Chinese university students participated in an AI-supported speaking intervention, with follow-up interviews conducted with 12 participants. Quantitative results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in oral proficiency (t = 2.81, p = 0.006). No significant difference was found in overall foreign language speaking anxiety between groups. Task-based analyses revealed that AI conversational agent reduced situational speaking anxiety in pair work and presentation tasks ( p < 0.001), but not in debate or storytelling. Qualitative findings further showed that learners perceived AI conversational agents as providing scaffolded and adaptive support through personalized feedback, prompting, and repetition in a non-judgmental environment, which facilitated oral development and reduced performance-related anxiety. Overall, the findings suggest that AI conversational agents support oral performance and selectively alleviate situational anxiety, while their effectiveness remains contingent on task structure and pedagogical design.