Defeat the fear of public speaking: 3 strategies helping students overcome language anxiety Reduce the insecurities during the language acquisition journey

Rawan Essam

Language anxiety is defined as a fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in a second or foreign language. Many learners face this problem during language acquisition. Research shows that six out of fifteen students suffer from language anxiety due to fear of negative evaluation, either from the teacher or their peers, fear of their social image, or fear of making mistakes. So here are the strategies to reduce language anxiety  (1). 

1. The teacher’s role in deepening the students’ self-awareness

Teachers have to correct the concept of learning a language and make their students aware of  language anxiety, which can be something temporary and does not have to  develop into a lasting problem. The instructors must adopt a tolerant attitude toward their learners mistake without feeling that their mistakes are a source of sarcasm or criticism (2). 

The professor has to help the students become self-aware. The learner needs to be self-aware about his language level, weaknesses, and shortages. Also, the student has to be aware of the situations that cause him language anxiety. It will help to address the problems that the student may fall into while speaking or practicing the language. 

2. Encourage cooperative learning

The educator has to encourage cooperative learning, such as pair work and group projects. The concept of cooperative learning relies on  that all students are equal. Cooperative learning is very beneficial for students. It boosts their confidence, enhances interdependency, enhances student engagement, and increases motivation. Moreover, it helps that each learner has an active role and identifies his responsibilities, which reduces language anxiety. 

Cooperative Learning allows the students to focus on communication rather than accuracy and not pay attention to language errors. It also reduces the wrong perceptions of low ability in using the foreign language. Cooperative learning strategies may help to reduce language anxiety and provide more opportunities for learners to produce language. 

3. Teacher-student relationship 

The teacher has to seek to have a good relationship with the students by normalizing the mistakes  as a crucial part of the process of acquiring a new language and providing a comfort zone for them to express and communicate with the language. The instructor has to not expose the learners test results in front of the whole class to avoid the anxiety that arises from negative feedback from their peers (3).

The educator can rely on verbal and nonverbal communication, such as calling the student by his first name, using humor, or using eye contact or positive gestures. They can reduce anxiety and have a positive impact on motivation to learn. 

In summary, language anxiety should be taught to teachers, which affects all language learners. So they can adopt effective strategies to deal with this problem with their students without making them more anxious or losing their motivation to learn.