This paper has been submitted for publication by Ali KARAKAŞ.
“I like English, but don’t
take part in speaking, because I’m so bad at speaking, and my friends
will laugh at me.” (an unidentified student quoted in Tsiplakides &
Keramida, 2009, p. 41)
Introduction
Many English language teachers are
familiar with the above statement voiced by a majority of their students
in speaking classes. This is, as well, a common complaint levelled by
EFL teachers about their silent students. This is because teaching
spoken language is deemed as a rather demanding task for teachers to
achieve as compared to the other aspects of language teaching (Brown
& Yule, 1999) and for learners, speaking is a highly
anxiety-provoking situation (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986). The
above comment from a student essentially points to the psychological
construct termed as “anxiety”, which has been in the limelight of
language research since 1980s (e.g. Horwitz et. al., 1986; Young, 1991)
and has been found to excessively influence students’ oral skill
(Fang-peng & Dong, 2010). Despite its significant impact on language
learning, EFL teachers have failed to identify students suffering from
anxiety in speaking classes, even worse, instead of taking steps,
teachers misconceived their students’ anxiety as low ability, reluctance
to engage in speaking activities or low motivation (Tsiplakides &
Keramida, 2009) and have rarely taken measures to handle this serious
issue (Riasiti, 2011). It is for these reasons that this paper aims to
shed light on the sources of speaking anxiety by providing suggestions
to diminish its adverse effects on learners’ performance in speaking
classes.
Definitions of key terms
Language anxiety can be described as
“the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with
second language texts, including speaking, listening, and learning”
(MacIntyre & Gardner, 1994, as quoted in Subaşı, 2010; p.30).
Various types of anxiety have been categorized by researchers. For
instance, Dörnyei (2005) classifies anxiety in two categories: (a)
facilitating and debilitating and (b) trait and state anxiety.
Facilitating anxiety is considered to be helpful for students to some
extent, whereas debilitating anxiety to be harmful and to impede
performance and achievement. State anxiety is experienced in certain
situations, hence situational, while trait anxiety is understood as an
inherent characteristic of the individual. “Speaking-in-class anxiety”
is acknowledged to be situational occurring only on certain occasions in
which speaking is concerned (Mak, 2011; p. 204). State anxiety is
considered, by many researchers, to be more detrimental to learners than
situational anxiety.
Sources of Speaking Anxiety
Research has discovered numerous
sources associated with speaking anxiety. The common sources can be
enumerated as fear of making mistake, tests and assessments, social
comparison, competition (Dörnyei, 2001), negative evaluation and
perceived low ability (Subaşı, 2010), additionally, negative judgements
towards English classroom and insufficient wait-time (Mak, 2011).
Students with debilitating speaking anxiety tend to display avoidance of
involvement in tasks by remaining silent, sitting in the back row,
avoiding eye contact with the teacher, to name a few. The aforementioned
sources and avoidance strategies should be well read by teachers. If
required, they should take up a doctor-like role and diagnose where the
problem lies and accordingly apply interventions to dispose of the
displeasing effects of anxiety. To help teachers practically actualize
this, in what follows, a number of suggestions are offered in the light
of previous research and experience.
How to reduce speaking anxiety
The primary role in reducing speaking
anxiety belongs to the teachers who organize, conduct the tasks and
evaluate students’ performance. Yet, their manners have also been
reported to be the main cause of oral anxiety along with those of their
peers (Hilleson, 1996; Riasiti, 2011; Subaşı, 2010). Therefore, the
first step to reduce speaking anxiety is to raise teachers’ awareness
about their harmful manners towards learners. These might include ways
of error correction, comparing students to each other, forcing students
to talk, humiliating students. Solutions to this might be the
implementation of techniques from humanistic approaches such as Silent
Way, Total Physical Response, Suggestopedia and Community Language
Teaching (see Richards & Rogers, 2001). These approaches entail
teachers to establish good rapport with students, accept them as
individuals, tolerate their mistakes, and create a supportive and
relaxed classroom environment. These measures could specifically
minimise fear of committing mistakes, negative evaluation by teachers
and peers, social comparison and competition, which can result in high
student participation in speaking activities.
The conduct and selection of activities
are also of great importance in decreasing the level of anxiety, as some
activities tend to cause tension and distress on students (Abdullah
& AbdulRahman, 2010). The activities should be centred on students’
interests and be appropriate for their proficiency levels. Given that
each student has individual differences, provision of various activities
is recommended to encourage each student to raise their voice.
Activities conducted in cooperation with peers may lessen tension and
increase attendance to tasks because collaborating rather than competing
with others makes anxious students feel less threatened (Nakahashi,
2007).
A few activities to anxiety-reduction
are presented in the following lines. First one is based on role plays.
In such tasks, students generally take on a new persona with pseudo
names. This enables them to protect their self-image by disguising their
true self with a new identity and this can, somehow, mitigate their
fear of negative evaluation and assessment, and perception of low
ability. This can also be backed wearing a mask disguising students’
faces. Furthermore, group discussions might create more space for
anxious learners to participate, since there is no right or wrong in
what is said. Games such as picture describing and guess who is, based
on group and pair work can be incorporated into speaking activities, for
such learning is by definition less face-threatening. However, only
classroom-based measures of teachers are inadequate to create an
“anxiety-free zone” for learners (Dörnyei, 2001, p. 92).
The preliminary task is to identify
students experiencing debilitating anxiety and help them develop coping
strategies. Teachers should give special care to such students by
attending to their needs and concerns even outside the classroom by
taking individual-specific measures. One way of doing this is to make
encouraging remarks on students’ attempts, praise their efforts, provide
feedback written or oral, and have a private talk with them outside the
class (Kitano, 2001 cited in Subaşı, 2010). Complementary to the prior
measures, Tsiplakides & Keramida (2009) suggest similar
countermeasures as implicit correction of errors, inclusion of humour,
addressing students with first names, non-verbal praise such as patting
on shoulders or giving a warm smile and sufficient wait time for
answers. Such small steps might operate as icebreakers in the fight
against speaking anxiety.
Keeping in mind that each learning
situation is unique and problems faced might differ from one situation
to another, the recommendations offered above could not work each time
to the same extent for each case; consequently, teachers should
constantly be in the probe of answers to situation- and
individual-specific needs. To manage this, parents should also be
consulted to learn more about the causes of anxiety in students.
Particularly, in cases where personal problems and previous experiences
are involved, it is more unlikely for teachers to find ways of tackling
this matter. Such serious cases could necessitate professional and
medical assistance from specialists such as counsellors or
psychologists, if it is noticed that learner’s situational anxiety turns
into trait anxiety.
Conclusion
Though teaching spoken language to
learners has been of utmost necessity as it has never been so far,
teachers have met various obstacles, as already noted, in their attempts
to get students to talk in language classes. The main obstacle has been
cited as ‘speaking anxiety’, potentially the trigger of other factors
such as lack of motivation, unwillingness, low self-perception and low
self-esteem. Research has dealt with the issue by identifying sources
and harms, developing instruments to measure anxiety level but solutions
to anxiety-reduction have so far remained unsatisfactory.
To contribute to the solution of the
problem, a variety of suggestions drawn from previous studies and
researcher’s own experiences were introduced in the preceding section.
As emphasized previously, as practitioners, teachers should bear much of
responsibility by critically evaluating their own manners, identifying
needy students, applying suitable treatments, if necessary, consulting
the help of students’ parents. The issue in hand still requires further
research, especially, longitudinal, more practically oriented and
applicable in the case of confronting anxiety-related barriers while
teaching spoken language. As a final remark and summary, the suggestions
for the removal of “anxiety-provoking elements” from speaking classes
are to be reiterated in Dörnyei’s (2001) own words for teachers to
[a]void social comparison,
[p]romote cooperation instead of competition,
[he]lp learners to accept the fact that they will make mistakes as part of the learning process,
[m]ake tests and assessment completely ‘transparent’ and involve students in the negotiation of the final mark (p. 94).
It would be too assertive to claim that
the feeling of anxiety via aforementioned steps can be entirely
eradicated, since it is intrinsically existent in the learner’s life.
However, being aware of the sources and accordingly taking steps, and
developing coping strategies are noteworthy for both teachers and
learners, at least, to curtail the ruinous impacts of anxiety on
speaking classes as much as possible.
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