.. • IV .. .. ,.I • . ' ,' / . \._:· The main focus of this study was on the causes for and prevalence of language anxiety among grades 11 aflf 12 students of Dawhan Preparatory School in practicing their speaking skills. The data were cfJllected from ninety-six students through questionnaire, after it had got acceptable reliability of 0.83 Chronbach Alpha. Two English teachers and six students using semi structured interview, and classroom observation. Then the data were analyzed using percentage, and mean values as well as qualitative descriptions. The findings indicated that most of the students were found to be anxious while practicing speaking activities in the classroom. Some of those sources which made students feel so were: the stud•e nts' own beliefs, such as fear of being inferior to peers; teacher related factors, such as explicit error correction, being on the spot, impromptu speech and turn biases; types of activities/topics provided and the way being exploiteti, peer related factors such as fear of being laughed at; avoidance of the students' mother tongue and poor background among others. Besides, some symptoms were observed on the students during oral works in the classroom like cutting class, turning to the blackboard and giving their back to the class, dropping out of speech repeatedly, and sweating or shivering. The mean value of the response results "to the questionnaire was 3.26 which is an indicative that anxiety had higher prevalence of' the students. Generally, fear of negative evaluation, communication apprehension, inappropliate topics given for discussion, and poor background of the learners created smooth ground for anxiety to be generated and regenerated on the students while they were practicing English speaking skill.-I: can be said therefore, awareness regarding the students' speaking anxiety was less in Dawhan • ... Preparators School. Thus, some recommendable points are forwarded by which English anxiety may be niitigd(_ed. \ ~ . ••