Speaking Beyond the Marksheet: Written Proficiency, Oral Anxiety, and the Assessment Gap Among First-Year Undergraduates
This mixed-methods study of Indian first-year undergraduates reveals that high written academic scores do not predict oral communication proficiency, as performance gaps are primarily driven by affective barriers like stage fear and a lack of prior oral practice rather than linguistic deficiency, underscoring the need to integrate structured speaking training into curricula.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In classrooms around the world, a quiet disconnect often exists between what students can write and what they can say. For decades, language educators have recognized that knowing the rules of grammar is not the same as being able to speak with confidence. This distinction separates linguistic knowledge—the ability to construct a correct sentence on paper—from communicative competence, which involves the messy, real-time act of sharing ideas with an audience. While schools frequently test students on their written accuracy, the modern workplace and university life demand something different: the ability to speak clearly, listen actively, and engage with others without hesitation. When a student who excels in written exams freezes during a simple speech, it raises a fundamental question: is the problem a lack of language skill, or is something else blocking the path?
Researchers at SASTRA University in India set out to investigate this exact puzzle among first-year university students. They wanted to see if high scores in school-level written English exams could predict how well a student would perform in a university oral presentation. To find the answer, they gathered a group of fifty students and looked at two specific things: their past grades in written English and their current performance in a graded classroom presentation. The team also asked the students to fill out a survey about their feelings regarding public speaking, noting their fears, their confidence levels, and how much practice they had received in school. By combining these test scores with the students' own stories and direct observations of their behavior, the researchers built a clear picture of what happens when a student moves from writing essays to standing in front of a class.
The results revealed a striking gap. Students who had achieved high marks in their final school written exams did not necessarily perform well in their university oral assessments. In fact, the researchers found that a student's written score was a very poor predictor of their speaking ability. Whether a student had scored a 90 or an 80 on their written tests, their performance in the oral presentation varied wildly and could not be reliably guessed from those numbers. This pattern held true even when the researchers looked at students who were too nervous to present at all. Those who skipped the presentation session had written scores just as high as those who did speak, suggesting that the issue was not a lack of intelligence or language knowledge, but rather a specific barrier to speaking.
When the researchers looked closer at what was actually happening during the presentations, the cause of the struggle became clear. The primary obstacles were not linguistic, such as a lack of vocabulary or poor grammar. Instead, the students were held back by intense emotional barriers. Nearly eight out of ten students reported feeling a racing heart before they began to speak, and the most common reasons they gave for their poor performance were stage fright and a fear of being judged by others. These feelings were far more significant than difficulties with the English language itself. Even students who could speak in their native language with ease found that the pressure of speaking in English triggered a physical and mental freeze that prevented them from showing what they knew.
The study also uncovered a root cause for this anxiety that lay in the students' past education. When asked about their time in school, half of the students said they had never had their communication skills formally evaluated or graded. Only a small fraction reported having regular opportunities to practice giving speeches or leading discussions. This lack of practice created a structural gap: students had spent years mastering the written word but had rarely been asked to use their voices in a formal setting. Consequently, when they arrived at university and were suddenly asked to present, they faced a task they had never been trained to handle. The anxiety they felt was not a personal failing but a natural reaction to a skill they had never been taught to develop.
The researchers observed the students during their presentations and saw the physical evidence of this anxiety. Many students stood rigidly, avoiding eye contact with the audience, or spoke in a monotone voice. Some relied heavily on memorized scripts, which made them sound robotic, while others stumbled over words they knew perfectly well in writing. The body language of the group told the same story as the survey: confidence was low, and the fear of making a mistake was high. Interestingly, the students who felt the most nervous were also the ones who most strongly believed that schools should teach public speaking as a formal subject. They recognized that their struggle was not with the English language itself, but with the act of speaking it in front of people.
This research suggests that the ability to write well and the ability to speak well are two separate skills that do not automatically develop together. The study indicates that the drop in performance students experience when moving from school to university is not because they have lost their language skills, but because the assessment system has shifted from testing written accuracy to testing spoken confidence without providing the necessary training. The findings point to a need for a change in how education is structured, specifically calling for schools and universities to include regular, low-pressure opportunities for students to practice speaking. By treating oral communication as a distinct skill that requires its own dedicated instruction, rather than assuming it will happen naturally, educators can help students bridge the gap between what they know and what they can say.
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