Abstract
PREDICTIVE POWER OF SPEAKING ATTITUDE ON SPEAKING PERFORMANCE
This study was conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between preservice Turkish-language teachers’ speaking attitudes and speaking performances. This correlational survey study included 108 preservice Turkish-language teachers. Data were collected using the Speaking Attitude Scale and Speaking Performance Rating Scale. The t-test, Pearson’s correlation, and linear regressions analyses were used to analyze the data. The study found that there were medium-level positive relationships between speaking attitude and the pronunciation, fluency, content, and linguistic competency dimensions of speaking. Additionally, speaking attitude explained 14.2% of the variance in speaking performance and significantly predicted speaking performance. No significant relationship was found between speaking attitude and the non-verbal communication sub-dimension of speaking performance. Furthermore, speaking attitude did not significantly vary by sex. Conducting entertaining speaking activities for children as of early ages, providing constructive feedback regarding their speech, and enabling them to speak in public can notably contribute to developing positive speaking performance.
Keywords
Speaking, attitude, prediction.