LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:12 December 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2020
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Speaking Anxiety in an Afghan EFL Setting:
A Case Study of an Afghan University

Sayeed Asif Akramy, M.Ed. TESOL

Abstract

Speaking anxiety is a significant phenomenon which is experienced by the majority of learners, specifically Afghan EFL learners in their speaking. This qualitative study aimed to explore the reported experiences of seven Afghan EFL students studying in English Department of Takhar University with their speaking anxiety. For collecting the data, a semi-structured interview was designed. After collecting the data, the data was transcribed verbatim, and three important themes were drawn: (a) students’ perceptions of anxiety in speaking (b) reasons for speaking anxiety (c) the effects of speaking anxiety on students’ performance and the ways to overcome anxiety. The results showed that students’ perceptions toward speaking anxiety are both positive and negative. The findings also revealed that correcting students’ mistakes by teachers on the spot is a big cause for experiencing anxiety in speaking. The students reported that watching videos of English speakers of different English speaking countries and doing some physical exercises like, breathing deeply before taking part in classroom activities, using body language, and showing more eye contact while doing oral practices were core strategies they had used to reduce speaking anxiety.

Keywords: speaking anxiety, Afghan EFL learners, English videos, reported experiences, effects

Introduction

Speaking as an interactive skill is the most important course in acquiring a language. It is often believed to be one of the skills which may create more aspects of anxieties while being used by the learners. The majority of students are afraid of speaking while learning the language as a foreign language in their own context. Clearly, anxiety as a negative factor can easily be appeared in speaking when it is used by students. Anxiety itself is a feeling that may appear in different situations, such as getting ready for a job interview, giving speech to audience, or participating in an exam. This is considered important in education especially in learning process. Horwitz et al. (1986) stated that anxiety is experienced as an affective factor in all studies and it impacts the learning process. Besides, Horwitz (2001) asserted that anxiety is a kind of feeling that learners may create positive attitudes while taking it serious. He also noticed that these types of emotions and feelings help learners to evaluate what threats come to them and respond carefully to them in a proper way.

Anxiety obviously hampers speaking skill along with the ease or difficulty with which is acquired by learners. A research regarding this feeling indicated that anxiety decreases when the individuals get more experiences and proficiency (Gardner, Smythe & Brunet, 1977). On the contrary, other studies have conducted and showed that upper-level students with more experiences have had more anxiety (Kitano, 2001). We may then understand that, as a general and irrefutable fact, and regardless of some situations which are exceptional, the more the learners are proficient in a language, the lower their anxiety becomes. However, the influence of anxiety is not overlooked above proficiency of many other learners with more abilities who avoid speaking.

Moreover, it is clear that the main purpose of learning a foreign language is to be able speak it properly and fluently. Nonetheless, it is very hard for foreign language learners to become communicatively competent because of being influenced by some factors including affective ones. To add more, mastering speaking skill as productive is very important aspect compared with other skills which are in a language. Rechards and Renandya, (as cited in Griffiths, 2008) claimed that many learners study a language to improve their language proficiency or they want to become more competent in communicating while speaking the language.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Sayeed Asif Akramy, M.Ed. TESOL
Instructor
Takhar University
Afghanistan
asifakramy2013@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.