The effects of communicative activities in reducing engineering students´ communication apprehension in Polytechnic

The purpose of this study is to observe the level of communication apprehension among engineering students in Polytechnic Malaysia and to examine whether the use of communicative activities may give solution to the issue of communication apprehension. The sample included first semester engineering Polytechnic students in Selangor. The study design was a repeated measures comparison between traditional (control) and communicative activities (experimental) groups. Data collected included results of pre-test & post-test design to address two main research questions. The repeated measures analyses determined that pre-test and post-test scores revealed there were differences amongst communicative activities groups compared to traditional method. The findings indicate that the students perform better in the post-test compared to the pre-test after the inclusion of communicative activities in the ESL oral communication skills classes. The findings showed the positive effects of communicative activities in reducing engineering students´ communication apprehension and improving their ESL oral communication skills in polytechnic.