PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS IN SPEAKING: FEAR, ANXIETY AND CLASSROOM SILENCE
Keywords:
Psychological barriers; FLA; FLCAS; ESL students; Negative evaluation; Previous negative experiences; Low self-confidence.Abstract
It is important to understand where these psychological barriers to speaking come from. Because speaking is one of the most important ways for students to develop and grow. Due to this problem, they lose many opportunities to learn. It is important to address topics that students may not know about during lessons. This definitely has a strong negative impact on their studies. Let’s look at several studies in this field, for example FLA (Foreign Language Anxiety), FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale), and the problems that ESL students face. In speaking, a strong influence is exerted by fear of negative evaluation, previous negative experiences, and low self-confidence. All of this is connected and creates a kind of circle: anxiety makes a person stay silent, and the silence makes the anxiety even stronger. Because of this, students often freeze during conversations. Some give very short answers with just one or two words, while others try not to speak at all. All of this leads to students practicing less, which in turn worsens their language progress. Teachers need to make greater efforts, find ways to understand each student, and change the atmosphere in the classroom.
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