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Limited research on the relationship between pre-service English language teachers' foreign language speaking anxiety and their willingness to communicate, particularly in Turkish context, paved the way for the present inquiry. Considering the utmost importance of the two interrelated concepts, this quantitative study investigates the relationship between speaking anxiety and willingness to communicate within a correlational research design. Eighty-four first-year ELT students from a Turkish university participated in this study. The Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) and the Willingness to Communicate (WTC) Scale were administered to participants to assess their speaking anxiety and WTC levels. Data collected through two scales were examined by use of quantitative data analyses. The results showed that (1) students had a moderate level of speaking anxiety, while they indicated a high level of WTC, and (2) female learners had a higher level of speaking anxiety than their male peers, in terms of WTC levels, no difference was observed between genders, and (3) speaking anxiety had a significant impact on willingness to communicate and vice versa. The findings of the study are discussed along with the related literature and several implications and suggestions are presented both for practitioners and future studies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness ofreaders theater in developing speaking skills of EFL secondary schoolstudents and reducing their speaking anxiety. The sample of the studyconsisted of fifty-five first year secondary school at El- Lozy SecondarySchool for girls in Damietta Governorate. The two group quasiexperimental design, based on pre-post, non- equivalent control groupdesign was used. The instruments of the study included a speaking skillstest, a speaking skills rubric, and a speaking anxiety scale. The results ofthe study revealed that readers theater significantly developed overallspeaking skills of EFL secondary school students and reduced theirspeaking anxiety. On the other hand, there were no statisticallysignificant differences concerning speaking sub skills: content, accuracy,and pronunciation.