Setting and participants
The study was conducted in the Oral Communication Skills class of first-year students in an ELT department at a university in Turkey. The class had 32 students (24 female and eight male). Six participants were selected as interviewees and they became significant participants in the research, being interviewed on a weekly basis. Purposive sampling was used to select the interviewees taking into account participants’ responses to an initial questionnaire. Students with different characteristics were invited to participate. Two (Male 1 [M1] and Female 1 [F1]) were not happy with their speaking ability and the main problem was anxiety. M2 and F2 were more eager to participate in activities and underlined factors other than anxiety as the issues affecting their speaking performances. M3 and F3 were the most positive students. They seemed happy with their speaking performances and were willing to be active in classes. Questionnaire responses were categorised as ‘respondents’ (R1, R2, etc.) with numbers given randomly because the data were collected anonymously from the whole class.