<![CDATA[Speaking anxiety constitutes a significant psychological barrier that can impede English as a Foreign Language learners’ oral performance, particularly when they must organize linguistic content and communicate it spontaneously. This study investigates the manifestations and underlying dimensions of speaking anxiety among tenth-grade students when presenting recount texts at Al-Washliyah Private Islamic Senior High School Kisaran. Employing a descriptive qualitative design, the study collected data through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with four focal participants, and documentary evidence from a class of 22 students. The analysis drew on Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s three-component model of foreign language classroom anxiety, encompassing communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation, supported by Krashen’s affective filter hypothesis and MacIntyre and Gardner’s cognitive interference model. The findings revealed widespread speaking anxiety: only one student volunteered to speak, 16 performed after prompting, and five refused to participate. Students exhibited silence and avoidance, hesitation and stammering, physical nervousness, and deliberate avoidance behaviors, while fear of negative evaluation and communication apprehension emerged as the most pervasive anxiety dimensions. The study concludes that linguistic demands and real-time communicative pressure intensify speaking anxiety, highlighting the need for anxiety-sensitive pedagogical strategies in English speaking instruction.]]>
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