LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Communication Apprehensions in
English Language Classrooms in Schools in Pakistan

Muhammad Akram, Ph.D. Candidate

Abstract

Communication is a great ornament to excel in any field of life. Communication Apprehensions make or mar the personality of a student. The present study highlights the importance of the communication on the one hand and on the other it throws light on the students' Communication Apprehensions in English classroom context at University level. The study shows, if provided with proper facilitations, the students can better their performance in their language classroom activities and can achieve better results. The study also provides with some solutions to overcome the communication apprehensions.

1. Communication Apprehensions

It is considered that good communication is extremely important for the cordial atmosphere. Effective communication is a must in a language classroom in order to perform better in the classroom activities. Communication issue is very much a current issue in the modern world as Deans Kerry (2002) points out:

Communication issues have achieved greater prominence in recent professional service developments (Deans Kerry: 2002).

Communication Apprehensions are frequently found in language classrooms. It is a sort of classroom anxiety that may affect a student's oral communication. The present study has been conducted to find out the communication Apprehensions (what sort of apprehensions/barriers is there that cause breakdown in the communication process). Communication Apprehension can be situational i.e. it can be specific to a number of particular settings or "may even be part of a general anxiety trait that arises in many facets of an individual's life" (Friedman, 1980).

2. James McCroskey and Communication Apprehensions

James McCroskey (1970) was the first person who floated the idea of Communication Apprehension in 'Communication Monographs'. He operationally defined a one-dimensional 20-item scale called the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA) that has been the dominant and most frequently used assessment measure. His original interest was in a person's trait or dispositional anxieties across the communication situations. Communication apprehension has been defined as:

... individual level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons (McCroskey, 1977).

Again, it is important to note that the PRCA scale does not purport to be a direct measure of actual communication. Rather, it is a measure of anxiety related to anticipated communication (Chan and McCroskey, 1987).

According to McCroskey 1977, a lot of research has dealt with Communication Apprehensions in terms of a personality trait, but more recently the ideal of Communication Apprehensions has expanded to include both trait and situation views.

Generally, the trait orientation (commonly measured with the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension: PRCA, McCroskey, 1970, 1978, 1982b) operates from a pre dispositional orientation while the state orientation (commonly measured with a variation of Spielberger's state anxiety measure, 1966) operates from a situational orientation (McCroskey & Beatty 1984).

People have the ability to choose to communicate or choose not to communicate…Whether a person is willing or not to communicate, either in a given instance or more generally, is a volitional choice which is cognitively processed. The personality of the individual may be a determining factor in the manner in which that choice is made and what that choice will be (McCroskey and Richmond, 1990, pp. 20-21).

Communication apprehension can be divided into oral communication apprehension and written apprehension. The term is also used specifically to refer to oral communication as measured by McCroskey's (1986) Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA). Writing apprehension (WA) refers to an avoidance of written tasks, a feeling of frustration and poor performance when faced with a writing task and a fear of having one's writing read publicly and evaluated (Daly and Miller, 1975, Scott and Timmerman, 2005, Mabrito 1991 and 2000).

3. Recent Researches

Recent researchers have expanded Communication Apprehensions to include state-like communication apprehension, or anxiety associated with particular communication contexts. Personal traits also contribute to Communication Apprehensions.

Glaser (1981) presented his 'Negative Cognitive Appraisal Model' which assumes that the quiet child is criticized for his or her early language performance and the child learns to expect negative reactions and subsequently as a reaction he learns to avoid them by keeping quiet.

Gumperz's (1982) presented his famous 'Interactional Model' of communication that takes communication as the outcome of exchanges involving more than one active participant. According to Gumperz (1977: 199) contextualising cue is 'any aspect of the surface form of utterances which, can be shown to be functional in the signalling of interpretative frames when mapped onto message content.'

Later on, Neer (1987) developed a contextual model of Communication Apprehension, to assess the apprehension felt by a student toward communicating within the context of the classroom environment, which was targeted at the classroom environment about Participation Scale (CAPS) and the combination of CAPS with PRCA items to produce a Self Report of Classroom Apprehension (SRCA).

Physical appearance is also very much important in effective communication. If there is any problem in physical appearance that will cause a breakdown in communication as Maguire Terry (2002) 0bserves:

Barriers to good communication can be split into two main groups: physical and emotional. Physical barriers, such as a speech impediment, poor mental ability, deafness and poor sight, can be easily identified and we make allowances when dealing with such people. Emotional barriers might be less obvious, but failure to take time to understand a situation will lead to a false perception of the issues and could even cause us to censure someone wrongly (Maguire Terry: 2002).

Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986) define foreign language communication apprehension (FLCA) as "the special communication apprehension permeating foreign language learning [derived] from the personal knowledge that one will almost certainly have difficulty understanding others and making oneself understood" (p. 127). CA in language learning is characterised by a reluctance to talk or shyness in communicating and is "a distinct complex of self-perception, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours . . . arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process" (Horwitz et al. 1986:128).

It would be very interesting and useful to investigate what communication apprehensions are there in English language classroom which do not allow the students to communicate comfortably in class.

4. Method

The present study is an attempt to highlight what sort of apprehensions are there in the communication process in English language classroom. For this purpose a questionnaire (adopted from McCroskey's (1970) Personal Report of Communication Apprehension), consisting of 10 items related to communication apprehensions, has been used to identify the communication Apprehensions.

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